LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 


INTERNATIONAL 
'"GOVERNMENT 


TWO  REPORTS  BY 


tf.  S.  VVJOOLF 

PREPARED   FOR  THE   FABIAN 
RESEARCH  DEPARTMENT 

WITH   AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

BERNARD  SHAW 

TOGETHER   WITH   A   PROJECT   BY   A 

FABIAN  COMMITTEE  FOR  A  SUPERNATIONAL 
AUTHORITY  THAT  WILL  PREVENT  WAR 


BRENTANO'S 

NEW  YORK 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by  Brentano's 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION.     By  Bernard  Shaw ix 

PART  I 


I.     INTRODUCTION 3 

II.    THE  CAUSES  OF  WARS 8 

III.  INTERNATIONAL  LAW II 

IV.  TREATIES 15 

V.  CONFERENCES,  CONGRESSES,  AND  THE  CONCERT 

OF  EUROPE 24 

VI.  ARBITRATION  AND  JUDICIAL  TRIBUNALS  .       .  64 

VII.  AN  INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY         ...  98 

VIII.     CONCLUSIONS 124 

PART  II 
INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

I.  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT,  INTERNATIONAL 
AGREEMENT,  AND  INTERNATIONAL  DIS- 
AGREEMENT   139 

II.     INTERNATIONAL  ORGANS  AND  ORGANISMS        .     153 
III.    THE   INTERNATIONALIZATION  OF  ADMINISTRA- 
TION   179 

(a)  Communications 

(b)  Public  Health  and  Epidemic  Diseases 

(c)  Industry  and  Commerce 

(d)  Morals  and  Crime 


vi  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

IV.     COSMOPOLITAN  LAW-MAKING       ....     266 

(a)  International  Maritime   Legislation  and 

the  Unification  of  Maritime  Law 

(b)  International  Labor  Legislation 

(c)  Other  Examples 

V.     INTERNATIONAL  SOCIETY  AND  INTERNATIONAL 

STANDARDS 311 

VI.    THE    INTERNATIONALIZATION    OF    COMMERCE, 

INDUSTRY,  AND  LABOR 327 

VII.     SOME  CONCLUSIONS 344 


PART  III 

ARTICLES  SUGGESTED    FOR   ADOPTION 
BY   AN    INTERNATIONAL  CONFER- 
ENCE AT  THE  TERMINATION 
OF  THE  PRESENT  WAR 

(By  The  International  Agreements  Committee  of 
the  Fabian  Research  Department) 

I.     INTRODUCTION 371 

II.    THE  ARTICLES  OF  THE  TREATY         .       .       .376 

(a)  The  Establishment  of  a  Supernational 

Authority 

(b)  The  Constituent  States 

(c)  Covenant  Against  Aggression 

(d)  Covenant  Against  War  Except  as  a  Final 

Resource 

(e)  The  International  Council 

(/)  Different  Sittings  of  the  Council 


CONTENTS  vii 


HAPTER  PAGE 

(g)  Membership  of  the  Council  and  Voting 

(A)  Legislation  Subject  to  Ratification 

(t)  Legislation  on  Matters  of  Secondary  Im- 
portance by  Overwhelming  Majorities 
II.    THE  ARTICLES  OF  THE  TREATY  (continued) 

(j)  Facultative  Enforcement  by  Overwhelm- 
ing Majority  of  Legislation  Carried  by 
Overwhelming  Majorities  even  if  of 
Primary  Importance,  and  Not  Ratified 
by  a  Small  Minority  of  the  Minor 
States 

(£)  Non-Justiciable  Issues 

(/)  The  International  Secretariat 
(m)  The  International  High  Court 

(n)  The  Judges  of  the  Court 

(o)  The  Court  Open  Only  to  State  Govern- 
ments 

(p)  Justiciable  Issues 

(q)  Immediate  Publicity  for  all  Treaties,  Ex- 
isting and  Future 

(r)  Undertaking  to  Submit  all  Justiciable 
Questions  to  the  International  High 
Court 

(j)  Provision  for  Abrogation  of  Obsolete 
Treaties 

(t)  Provision  for  Cases  in  which  Inter- 
national Law  is  Vague,  Uncertain,  or 
Incomplete 

(u)  Enforcement  of  the  Decrees  of  the  Court 
III.    APPENDIX — A  SELECT  BIBLIOGRAPHY        .       .411 


INTRODUCTION 

By  BERNARD  SHAW 

THE  present  war  has  produced  many  catch- 
words, among  them,  A  War  to  End  War, 
An  Inconclusive  Peace,  The  Destruction  of 
Militarism,  The  Establishment  of  the  Rights  of 
Nationalities  on  an  Unassailable  Basis,  Free  Nego- 
tiation by  Free  Peoples,  and  This  Must  Never 
Occur  Again.  Most  of  these  shibboleths  proclaim 
their  own  thoughtlessness.  War  can  do  many 
things,  but  it  cannot  end  war.  No  peace  can  be  a 
conclusive  peace:  it  is  beyond  the  wit  of  man  to 
draw  a  treaty  of  peace  which  will  make  it  impos- 
sible for  war  to  recur  between  Britain  and  either 
her  present  enemies  or  her  present  allies.  The  de- 
struction of  militarism  cannot  be  attained  by  a  mili- 
tary triumph :  war  is  the  creator,  the  sustainer,  and 
the  reason-for-existence  of  militarism.  The  rights  of 
Nationalities,  far  from  being  placed  on  an  unassail- 
able basis  by  war,  are  at  present  wiped  out  by 
it:  the  Englishman  is  forced  to  fight  as  a  pressed 
man  for  Russia,  though  his  father  was  slain  by 
the  Russians  at  Inkerman,  and  for  France,  though 
his  grandfather  fell  at  Waterloo  charging  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  Bliicher's  Prussians.  The  German 
is  compelled  by  the  Prussian,  whom  he  loathes, 


x  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

to  die  for  Turkey  and  for  the  Crescent  as  against 
Anglo-Saxon  Christendom.  Every  one  of  the  bel- 
ligerents is  holding  down  some  conquered  race  or 
nation.  The  establishment  of  the  rights  of  na- 
tionalities on  an  unassailable  basis  would  cause 
the  instant  dissolution,  first  of  the  British  Empire, 
then  of  the  Austrian,  with  political  earthquakes  in 
the  French  Republic,  the  Italian  Kingdom,  and 
the  Russian  Empire,  leaving  Germany,  on  the 
whole,  the  strongest  of  the  survivors.  This  is  so 
obvious  that  the  phrase  can  mean  nothing  but 
the  rescue  of  Belgium  from  dependence  on  the 
Central  Empires,  and  its  restoration  to  a  state  of 
complete  political  dependence  on  France  and 
Britain.  Free  negotiation  by  free  peoples  is 
impossible  because  there  are  no  free  peoples 
engaged  in  the  present  war:  nobody  pretends 
that  the  German  people  or  the  Russian  people  are 
free;  and  if  we  take  the  belligerent  Republics 
and  limited  monarchies  of  the  west  as  compara- 
tively free,  yet  we  find  that  the  one  department  in 
which  they  do  not  even  make  a  pretense  of 
democracy  is  diplomacy,  which  is  as  autocratic 
in  London  as  in  St.  Petersburgh  or  Berlin. 

Thus  we  see  that  none  of  the  catchwords  except 
the  last  can  possibly  mean  what  they  say;  and 
when  they  are  cheered  each  time  they  reappear 
in  the  Prime  Minister's  stock  peroration,  it  is 
evident  that  he  himself  offers  them  as  no  more  than 
oratorical  orchestration  to  the  patriotic  sentiment 
of  the  assembly.  They  can  be  taken  literally 
only  by  ignorant  and  simple  persons  to  whom  a 


INTRODUCTION  xi 


European  war  is  simply  a  football  match  conducted 
with  cannons. 

The  only  catchword,  then,  that  has  anything  in 
it  is,  This  Must  Never  Occur  Again.  But  it  quite 
certainly  will  occur  again  if  nothing  is  done  to 
prevent  it.  Crude  people  recommend  the  destruc- 
tion of  Germany  as  a  preventive.  In  Germany 
the  same  sort  of  people  recommend  the  destruction 
of  England.  Among  the  neutrals  they  say,  "By 
all  means  let  these  two  quarrelsome  and  arrogant 
Powers  destroy  one  another  like  the  Kilkenny  cats 
and  leave  the  world  in  peace."  But  even  if  such 
a  solution  were  physically  or  morally  possible, 
which  everyone  who  is  not  a  cretinous  Yahoo 
knows  perfectly  well  it  is  not,  in  what  way  would 
the  recurrence  of  war,  or  even  the  continuance  of 
the  present  war  in  a  fight  over  the  spoils,  be 
prevented  by  it?  Cato's  formula  for  the  ending 
of  the  Punic  wars  was,  Annihilate  Carthage. 
Carthage  was  annihilated;  but  its  annihilation 
brought  no  peace  to  Rome.  The  Irish  are  a  con- 
tentious and  troublesome  people;  and  the 
proverbial  receipt  for  peace  in  Ireland  is  to  sink 
the  island  for  ten  minutes  into  the  Atlantic.  Let 
us  suppose  that  Ireland  is  duly  sunk,  with  England 
and  Prussia  moored  to  it,  not  for  ten  minutes,  but 
for  ever.  The  white  and  yellow  races  will  still 
confront  one  another  across  the  Pacific.  Italy, 
France  and  Spain  will  still  have  to  divide  the  heri- 
tage of  the  Moors.  Sweden  will  still  watch  Russia 
with  her  hand  on  her  sword-hilt;  and  Russia  will 
still  burn  to  protect  the  Balkans,  to  wrest  Con- 


xii  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

stantinople  from  the  followers  of  "the  accursed 
Mahound,"  to  cling  to  Poland  like  a  big  brother, 
and  to  pick  up  more  of  the  White  Man's  Burden 
in  Asia  than  the  other  Powers  may  think  healthy 
for  her,  or  than  India,  for  instance,  may  be  dis- 
posed to  cast  on  any  shoulders  but  her  own.  Of 
South  America  I  say  nothing  except  that  it  does 
not  look  convincing  as  a  Temple  of  Perpetual 
Peace.  At  all  events,  the  notion  that  the  most 
completely  decisive  victory  either  by  the  Allies 
or  the  Central  Empires,  pushed  to  the  most 
ruthless  extremities  by  the  victors  with  a  view 
to  the  eternal  disablement  of  the  vanquished, 
would  guarantee  the  peace  of  the  world  for  five 
years,  or  even  for  five  minutes,  is  on  the  face  of  it 
mere  moonshine.  The  world  would  remain  full 
of  explosive  material,  and  be  so  heavily  demoralized 
into  the  bargain  that  it  would  be  less  than  ever 
capable  of  keeping  lighted  matches  away  from  the 
powder  magazine. 

Besides,  the  reduction  to  absurdity  of  military 
wars  by  stalemate,  or  by  increasing  the  cost  of 
victory  beyond  any  possible  advantage,  direct  or 
contingent,  to  be  hoped  from  it,  would  still  leave 
tariff  wars  possible,  and  even  encourage  them  by 
guaranteeing  them  against  military  reprisals.  At 
present  a  clamorous  section  of  the  British  public 
is  demanding  a  perpetual  tariff  war  against  Ger- 
many, peace  or  no  peace.  They  openly  and  reck- 
lessly class  tariffs  with  hostilities  and  insist  on 
their  destructive  and  malicious  character.  They 
are  naively  unaware  of  the  fact  that  if  protective 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 


duties  really  bear  this  construction  we  are  at  war 
with  our  ally  France  at  this  moment;  for  France 
has  locked  the  door  of  her  vast  dominion  in  the 
north  of  Africa  against  our  manufactures,  and  it 
has  never  been  suggested  that  our  alliance  should 
unlock  it,  either  during  the  war  or  after  it.  The 
modern  empire  state  is  not  an  Arnold  von  Win- 
kelried,  opening  the  way  for  all  the  world  to  rush 
in  at  his  heels:  on  the  contrary,  the  modern 
Arnold,  the  moment  he  is  through,  turns  swiftly 
and  bars  the  entry  against  all  competitors.  The 
wise  man  looks  for  the  cause  of  war  not  in 
Nietzsche's  gospel  of  the  Will  to  Power,  or  Lord 
Roberts's  far  blunter  gospel  of  the  British  Will  to 
Conquer,  but  in  the  custom  house.  The  formal 
conquest  of  a  territory  may  loom  large  as  a  senti- 
mental grievance;  but,  as  the  case  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  shows,  it  does  not  produce  war.  But 
the  appropriation  of  a  market  is  another  matter: 
a  very  small  economic  grievance  will  rapidly  be- 
come the  nucleus  of  an  enormous  mass  of  martial 
and  patriotic  emotion.  There  is  no  prospect  of 
the  end  of  this  war  being  the  end  of  international 
market-cornering  and  tariff  blockades ;  and  as  long 
as  war  remains  physically  possible,  such  operations 
will  produce  it  as  fatally  in  the  future  as  in  the 
past. 

Again,  take  the  Balance  of  Power  aimed  at  by 
our  diplomatists.  As  long  as  each  State  works 
for  its  own  hand,  as  at  present,  every  diplomatist 
is  necessarily  engaged  in  a  constant  struggle  to 
upset  the  balance  of  power  in  his  own  favor.  He 


xiv  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

pretends  to  aim  at  nothing  beyond  preserving  it; 
but  he  exposes  all  the  rest  as  aiming  at  hegemony, 
at  command  of  the  sea,  and  so  forth.  Each  na- 
tion feels  that  supremacy  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  its  security,  and  that  it,  and  it  alone,  can  be 
trusted  not  to  abuse  it.  War  intensifies  this  feel- 
ing, and  the  present  war  is  no  exception:  it  began 
as  a  pure  Balance  of  Power  war;  and  it  will  not 
only  stimulate  to  the  highest  degree  those  passions 
of  fear  and  jealousy  which  are  the  motive  force  of 
the  equilibrist  diplomacy,  but  will  throw  political 
power  into  the  hands  of  those  who  are  entirely 
governed  by  them.  The  Napoleonic  wars  threw 
Europe  into  the  hands  of  Metternich  and  Castle- 
reagh,  who  had  no  other  desire  than  to  stereotype 
the  conditions  which  had  produced  the  war  and  to 
stifle  the  new  moral  world  in  its  cradle.  In  the 
Franco-Prussian  war  of  1870-71,  even  so  thorough- 
paced a  Junker  as  Bismarck  went  under  because 
he  was  not  reactionary  enough  for  the  victorious 
military  party,  and  Alsace-Lorraine  was  annexed 
in  spite  of  him.  And  if  the  present  war  should 
end  in  a  decisive  victory  for  either  side,  that  vic- 
tory will  be  used  and  abused  to  the  uttermost  in 
spite  of  the  Bismarcks,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
moderate  men  and  Pacifists,  so  vainly  urging  a 
friendly  settlement  whilst  the  combatants  go 
steadily  on  fighting  for  the  strongest  position  at 
the  finish,  and  most  certainly  not  fighting  for  it 
with  any  intention  of  foregoing  an  inch  of  it  when 
it  is  gained. 

Let  us  therefore    not    deceive    ourselves    with 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

good-natured  dreams.  Unless  and  until  Europe 
is  provided  with  a  new  organ  for  supernational 
action,  provided  with  an  effective  police,  all  talk 
of  making  an  end  of  war  is  mere  waste  of  breath. 
There  is  only  one  alternative  to  government  by 
police,  and  that  is  government  by  massacre.  We, 
like  the  Ottoman  Turks,  have  found  that  to  be 
true  in  our  own  affairs.  The  Turks,  in  the  Balkans 
and  in  Armenia,  and  we,  in  the  Indian  hills  and  in 
Africa  and  Australia,  have  found  that  where  our 
police  stops,  its  place  must  be  taken  by  raids  of 
soldiers,  killing,  burning  and  destroying  indis- 
criminately until  enough  is  judged  to  have  been 
done  to  keep  the  district  in  awe  for  some  years  to 
come.  The  fact  that  we  call  such  expeditions 
massacres  when  the  Turks  resort  to  them,  and 
punitive  expeditions  or  brigandage  commissions 
when  we  resort  to  them,  does  not  change  their 
essential  character;  and  the  protests  of  the  few 
humanitarians  who  know  what  the  official  for- 
mulas which  occasionally  leak  out  in  the  press 
really  mean,  are  quite  unavailing;  for  though  the 
reign  of  terror  is  necessarily  cruel,  anarchy  is  apt 
to  be  crueller  still,  and  the  reign  of  terror  is  thus 
forced  on  us  as  the  best  practicable  alternative  to 
the  reign  of  law.  Our  habit  of  looking  the  other 
way  and  talking  busily  about  the  weather  on  such 
occasions  is  not,  as  we  imagine,  civilization;  it  is 
only  our  attempt  to  hide  from  ourselves  the  fact 
that  civilization  means  law,  and  that  where  law 
stops,  the  most  civilized  people  in  the  world  have 
to  act  like  Timour  the  Tartar  and  Ivan  the  Ter- 


xvi  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

rible,  or  like  the  highly  respectable  and  civilized 
French  ladies  and  gentlemen  who,  during  the 
French  Revolutionary  wars,  had  to  connive  at  the 
September  massacres  by  pretending  that  nothing 
particular  was  happening  when  the  regular  tri- 
bunals could  not  cope  with  the  public  danger.  In 
the  territories  of  the  United  States,  pioneered  by 
men  quite  as  civilized  by  teaching  and  tradition 
as  their  cousins  in  London  and  Brighton,  the  re- 
volver and  the  bowie  knife  reigned  where  the 
sheriff  and  the  vigilance  committee  fell  short. 
And  the  sixteen-inch  gun  and  the  submarine 
torpedo  reign  in  Europe  at  present  solely  because 
there  is  no  supernational  sheriff  or  vigilance  com- 
mittee to  adjust  the  disputes  of  nations. 

As  this  well-established  conclusion  of  political 
science  is  not  very  recondite,  there  is  no  lack  at 
present  of  schemes  and  proposals  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  some  sort  of  supernational  court. 
American  projectors  have  been  specially  active, 
and  one  of  them  has  actually  applied  to  influential 
persons  throughout  the  world  for  powers  of  attor- 
ney to  enable  him  to  represent  them  at  what  may 
be  described  roughly  as  a  Hague  Conference  of 
the  Human  Race.  Besides  these  more  definite 
schemes,  there  is  a  vast  mass  of  opinion  which  can 
be  compared  only  to  that  of  the  elder  Weller  in 
Pickwick.  It  will  be  remembered  by  good  Dickens- 
ians  that  when  the  case  of  Bardell  v.  Pickwick 
was  entered,  Mr.  Weller  recommended  Mr.  Pick- 
wick to  plead  an  alibi;  and  when  Mr.  Pickwick 
lost  his  case,  his  humble  counsellor  uttered  the 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 


famous  lamentation,  "Why  wornt  there  an  al- 
leybi?"  Substitute  the  word  Arbitration  for 
Alibi,  and  you  have  the  state  of  mind  of  ninety- 
nine  Pacifists  out  of  every  hundred  now  living. 
They  know  that  a  war  between  England  and  the 
United  States  over  the  Alabama  was  averted  by 
arbitration,  and  they  have  ever  since  regarded 
arbitration  as  a  simple  and  sufficient  alternative 
to  war.  Since  1899  they  have  attached  a  peculiar 
sanctity  to  the  soil  of  The  Hague,  owing  to  the 
establishment  there  of  the  Hague  Conference  as 
a  permanent  arbitrating  body.  But  it  is  just  this 
limitation  of  the  Hague  Conference  to  arbitration, 
and  to  quite  unauthoritative  attempts  to  codify 
and  establish  such  rules  of  the  ring  as  war  admits 
of,  that  makes  it  practically  negligible  as  a  pacific 
agency. 

The  present  volume  will,  it  is  hoped,  help  to 
clear  away  this  benevolent  vagueness  and  to  ex- 
plain what  is  needed  as  an  alternative  to  war. 
From  it  our  preachers  of  arbitration  will  learn 
what  arbitration  really  is;  and  they  must  set  off 
their  disappointment  in  finding  how  little  it  can 
do  against  their  surprise  and  satisfaction  in  learn- 
ing how  much  it  has  already  done;  for  there  have 
been  many  more  arbitrations  than  the  public  have 
heard  of,  and  several  of  them  may  fairly  claim  to 
have  averted  war.  But  no  arbitration  court  can 
supply  the  need  for  a  Supernational  Legislature,  a 
Supernational  Tribunal,  and  a  Supernational  Board 
of  Conciliation;  and  the  members  of  these  bodies 
must  not  be  private  philanthropists  on  a  holiday, 
2 


xviii          INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

qualified  in  the  first  instance  by  their  ability  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  a  trip  to  Holland,  but  respon- 
sible representatives  of  the  actual^Governments  of 
•the  constituent  States.  No  question  can  be  en- 
tertained of  any  further  representative  character 
on  their  part:  the  essential  and  indispensable  qual- 
ification must  be  ability  to,  as  the  phrase  goes, 
"deliver  the  goods."  Sages  and  saints,  plebisci- 
tary  or  volunteer  representatives  of  the  heart  of 
the  people,  will  not  serve  the  purpose:  only  the 
plenipotentiary  who  has  the  effective  Government 
of  his  State  behind  him,  and  whose  Aye  or  No 
may  be  depended  on  as  the  Aye  and  No  of  that 
Government,  will  be  of  any  use. 

How  it  may  all  be  done  if  there  is  the  will  to  do 
it  is  suggested  in  the  following  pages.  It  is  the 
peculiar  business  of  The  Fabian  Society  to  supply 
progressive  aspirations  with  practical  methods. 
The  process  adopted  in  the  present  case  has  been,, 
first,  to  refer  the  question  to  the  Fabian  Research 
Department.  As  practically  nobody  knew  more 
than  bits  and  scraps  of  what  had  actually  been 
done  in  the  way  of  International  Organization,  the 
Department  had  to  begin  by  finding  an  investiga- 
tor and  skilled  writer  with  the  necessary  qualifica- 
tions and  devotion  for  the  task  of  preparing  a 
report  and  suggesting  conclusions.  A  certain  en- 
dowment was  also  needed,  not  to  remunerate  the 
investigator  on  the  usual  professional  basis,  but 
to  prevent  its  bare  expenses  from  falling  too  heavily 
on  a  single  worker.  The  endowment  was  pro- 
vided by  a  timely  donation  from  Mr.  Joseph 


INTRODUCTION  xix 


Rowntree,  who,  as  often  happens,  is  not  a  member 
of  the  Society,  but  appreciates  its  manner  of  doing 
useful  jobs  in  the  building  up  of  social  tissue;  and 
the  man  was  found  in  Mr.  L.  S.  Woolf,  who 
turned  cheerfully  from  belles  lettres  to  the  produc- 
tion of  the  present  volume  on  terms  which  would 
certainly  have  been  rejected  with  emphasis  by  a 
dock  laborer. 

The  report,  both  in  installments  as  it  was 
produced,  and  when  it  was  completely  drafted, 
was  subjected  to  keen  discussion  in  the  Research 
Department,  where  experts  in  this  kind  of  work  are 
six  a  penny.  It  was  then  published  as  a  supplement 
to  The  New  Statesman,  and  thus  offered  for  general 
public  discussion.  Later  on,  at  a  summer  meeting 
on  the  shore  of  Lake  Derwentwater,  it  was  sub- 
mitted to  a  conference  at  which  the  members  of  a 
group  which  had  been  working  independently  on 
the  subject  under  the  presidency  of  Lord  Bryce 
were  present,  with  such  other  non-Fabian  experts 
as  could  be  secured;  and  a  point  was  there  reached 
at  which  it  was  apparent  that  the  sounding  of 
the  report  by  skilled  discussion  and  criticism  had 
been  carried  to  exhaustion.  It  is  now  published 
as  being  as  good  as  the  Fabian  Society  can  at 
present  make  it.  Nothing  but  actual  experience 
can  determine  the  limits  of  its  practicability;  but 
it  at  least  plans  the  experiment  as  carefully  as 
possible. 

The  main  difficulty  will  be  to  make  our  party 
politicians  aware  that  any  such  piece  of  work  has 
been  done  in  England.  It  has  occurred  repeatedly 


xx  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

within  the  experience  of  the  Fabian  Society  that 
Ministers,  finding  themselves  under  electoral  pres- 
sure to  introduce  some  reform  which  is  only  known 
to  them  as  a  platform  phrase,  have  proceeded  in 
complete  ignorance  of  the  work  that  has  been  put 
into  the  proposal  by  English  thinkers  and  political 
scientists,  and,  after  a  carefully  advertised  trip 
to  some  country  where  something  of  the  kind  is 
supposed  to  be  in  operation  (usually  Germany), 
have  come  back  and  introduced  a  Bill  containing 
every  possible  blunder  that  sciolism  can  make 
after  five  minutes'  contemplation  of  a  half-under- 
stood subject,  and  have  actually  passed  it  into 
law,  only  to  be  forced  to  pass  an  amending  Act  after 
a  year  of  easily  avoidable  wreckage.  It  is  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  want  of  touch  between  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  country  and  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  Cabinet  Ministers  always  assume 
that  political  science,  as  distinguished  from  the 
arts  of  electioneering  and  managing  the  House, 
does  not  exist  in  England.  German  bureaucrats 
and  Swiss  and  Italian  professors  are  readily 
credited  with  political  scholarship;  but  their  works 
are  not  read;  and  it  is  consequently  not  noticed 
that  they  quote  English  sociologists  with  respect, 
and  often  build  on  their  foundations.  The  British 
statesman  sails  along  quite  convinced  that,  except 
for  an  occasional  university  professor's  text-book, 
which  is  assumed  to  be  unpractical  and  useless, 
England  has  produced  nothing  but  a  few  agnostic 
essays,  Ruff's  Guide  to  the  Turf,  The  Hundred 
Best  Investments,  and  special  articles  in  the 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 


newspapers  on  Tariff  Reform  to  serve  as  party 
kites  to  test  how  the  electoral  wind  is  blowing,  or 
to  set  it  blowing  in  a  desired  direction. 

It  is  a  pity;  for  much  excellent  work  is  done;  and 
it  is  not  cheerful  for  the  Fabian  Society,  which  has 
organized  a  considerable  share  of  it,  to  be  obliged 
in  common  honesty  to  warn  workers  that  not  only 
will  they  get  no  pence  for  their  labors,  but  that 
nobody  with  any  executive  authority  will  take  the 
smallest  notice  of  it. 

Still,  the  vocation  of  the  Fabian  Society  is  to 
chart  all  the  channels  into  which  the  ship  of  State 
is  being  irresistibly  driven  by  social  evolution. 
The  certainty  that  the  ship  will  be  piloted  by  a 
person  calling  himself  ,  a  Practical  Statesman, 
fanatically  devoted  to  the  method  of  Trial  and 
Error,  and  finding  all  the  rocks,  both  the  hidden 
and  the  obvious  ones,  by  the  simple  method  of 
steering  the  ship  crash  on  to  them,  and  then 
getting  her  off  as  best  he  can,  would  not  justify  the 
Fabians  in  leaving  the  channel  uncharted.  They 
are,  after  all,  no  worse  treated  than  those  English 
chemists  and  metallurgists  who  have  seen  their 
discoveries  appreciated  and  exploited  in  Germany 
and  elsewhere  whilst  receiving  nothing  at  home  but 
a  good-natured  contempt  as  faddists.  They  do  not 
complain  of  their  own  particular  share  of  the  general 
neglect;  but  they  take  the  opportunity  to  point  out 
that  a  supernational  political  constitution  can  no 
more  be  built  without  science  than  an  airship  or 
an  ironclad,  and  that  a  governing  class  which  is 
still  repeating  that  "The  Republic  has  no  need 


xxii  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

of  chemists,"  and  exempting  hunt  servants  from 
military  duty  whilst  driving  scientific  workers 
contemptuously  into  the  trenches  by  way  of  "giv- 
ing them  something  real  to  do,"  must  not  be  sur- 
prised if  it  finds  itself  outwitted  by  States  which 
take  skilled  advice  instead  of  relying  on  the  theory 
that  country  gentlemen  are,  as  a  class,  inspired. 

More  than  this  it  is  not  prudent  to  say,  for  a 
total  neglect  of  science  may  be  better  than  the 
sudden  conversion  to  it  of  gentlemen  who  conceive 
it  as  a  means  of  discovering  miraculous  cures  for 
diseases,  especially  distemper  in  foxhounds.  For- 
tunately there  is  little  opportunity  in  political 
science  for  the  elixir  of  life  and  the  philosopher's 
stone.  There  will  be  neither  quackery  nor  science 
about  the  Congress  which  will  patch  up  the  present 
war  when  it  has  reached  the  end  of  its  tether.  It 
will  be  a  repetition  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna: 
that  is,  a  crowd  of  diplomatists  will  gather  round 
the  booty,  and  try  to  secure  as  much  as  they  can 
as  best  they  can  for  their  respective  States.  Few 
if  any  of  them  will  have  ulterior  views;  and  most 
of  them  will  regard  those  who  look  for  an  end  of 
war  as  an  institution  as  vulgar  ideologues.  Never- 
theless, the  reaction  against  the  monstrous  slaugh- 
ter and  destruction  of  the  war,  and  the  heavy 
financial  burden  it  will  leave,  may  be  too  much 
for  diplomatic  routine;  and  it  may  also  happen 
that  the  only  acceptable  terms  of  peace  may  be 
impracticable  without  new  supernational  machin- 
ery of  a  much  more  definite  and  permanent  kind 
than  the  old  Concert  of  Europe  which  it  was  so 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 


hard  to  keep  in  tune,  and  which  was  so  dismal  a 
failure  as  regards  the  prevention  of  war.  In  such 
an  event  the  following  pages  may  prove  useful, 
embodying  as  they  do  many  months  of  research 
and  discussion  of  at  least  as  trustworthy  a  quality 
as  the  British  Foreign  Office,  on  a  comparison  of 
its  publications  with  those  of  the  Fabian  Society, 
can  reasonably  be  expected  to  achieve. 

G.  B.  S. 


PART  I 

AN    INTERNATIONAL   AUTHORITY   AND 
THE  PREVENTION  OF  WAR 

By  L.  S.  Woolf 


"Now  Europe  balanced,  neither  side  prevails, 
For  nothing's  left  in  either  of  the  scales." — SWIFT. 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

"/^VN  the  conclusion  of  the  war  the  working 
If  classes  of  all  the  industrial  countries  must 
unite  to  ...  establish  some  international 
authority  to  settle  points  of  difference  among  na- 
tions by  compulsory  conciliation  and  arbitration." 
"It  would  clearly  be  desirable,  if  possible,  that 
they  (the  terms  of  peace)  should  include  pro- 
visions obliging  Germany,  along  with  the  rest  of 
Europe,  to  submit  to  some  form  of  international 
organization  designed  to  prevent  future  war." 

These  quotations  are  from  the  resolutions  of  a 
Socialist  Conference  and  from  the  pages  of  a  well- 
known  paper,  but  they  are  typical  of  the  hopes 
and  desires  which  one  meets  continually  upon  the 
lips  or  pens  of  a  large  number  of  more  or  less  in- 
telligent persons  of  all  classes  and  of  every  variety 
of  political  belief.  A  certain  vagueness  permeates 
the  expression  of  these  hopes  and  desires,  and  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  this  vagueness  is  the 
invariable  use  of  the  phrase  "some  sort  of  inter- 
national authority"  or  " some  form  of  international 
organization."  The  object  of  this  enquiry  is  to 
give  data  which  may,  if  possible,  enable  people  to 
transform  the  vague  "some  sort  of"  into  a  more 
definite  object  of  their  hopes. 


4 INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  problem  is  not  a  new  one.  It  has  for  many 
centuries  exercised  the  minds  of  those  people  who, 
because  they  were  civilized,  have  at  all  times  been 
contemptuously  called  theorists  and  Utopians  by 
plain  men,  their  contemporaries;  but  periodically, 
when  the  world  is  swept  by  the  cataclysm  called 
war,  plain  men,  amazed  to  find  that  they  are  not 
civilized,  have  themselves  raised  a  cry  for  the  in- 
stant solution  of  the  problem.  One  cannot,  how- 
ever, avoid  some  doubt  whether  the  most  oppor- 
tune moment  for  solving  it  is  the  hurried  and 
temporary  reaction  which  comes  to  men  when 
they  see  what  a  very  barbarous  and  inefficient 
method  of  arranging  international  affairs  they 
have  adopted  in  the  arbitrament  of  arms.  The 
question  is,  indeed,  generously  complicated.  In 
its  broadest  aspect  the  problem  is  to  develop  a 
whole  system  of  international  relationship  in  which 
public  war  shall  be  as  impossible  between  civilized 
States  as  is  private  war  in  civilized  States:  in  its 
narrower  aspect  the  problem  which  the  world  has 
still  to  solve  is  the  development  of  a  machinery 
capable  of  settling  international  differences  and 
disputes. 

It  is  possible  to  say  without  begging  the  question 
that  in  the  last  100  years  a  system  of  international 
relationship  has  been  very  rapidly  developing  with 
rudimentary  organs  for  regulating  the  society  of 
nations  without  warfare.  If  we  are  really  to  trans- 
form that  "some  sort  of  international  organization" 
into  a  definite  international  organization  which  will 
commend  itself  to  the  disillusioned  judgment  of 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 


statesmen  and  other  "practical'*  men,  we  must 
build  not  a  Utopia  upon  the  air  or  clouds  of  our 
own  imaginations,  but  a  duller  and  heavier  struc- 
ture placed  logically  upon  the  foundations  of  the 
existing  system.  I,  therefore,  propose  to  analyze 
the  most  important  parts  of  the  existing  system,  in 
order  to  see  in  what  respects  it  has,  during  the  last 
century,  succeeded  and  failed  in  preventing  war. 

Before  proceeding  to  this  task  it  will  be  advisable 
to  answer  a  preliminary  objection  which  in  the 
present  temper  of  the  world  is  bound  to  occur  to 
one's  mind  at  various  points  of  the  enquiry.  Sys- 
tems and  machinery,  it  is  said,  are  not  the  way  to 
prevent  war,  which  will  only  cease  when  men 
cease  to  desire  it:  Europe,  relapsed  to-day  into 
barbarism,  shows  that  men  will  never  cease  to  de- 
sire it:  we  must  face  the  fact  that  International 
Law  and  Treaties  and  Arbitration  will  never  pre- 
vent these  periodical  shatterings  of  our  civiliza- 
tion: one  week  in  August,  1914,  was  sufficient  to 
sweep  away  the  whole  elaborate  progress  of  a 
century.  One  meets  this  train  of  reasoning  con- 
tinually at  the  present  time.  It  is  woven  out  of 
pessimism  and  two  fallacies.  The  first  fallacy  is 
the  historically  false  view  which  men  invariably 
take  of  the  present.  It  is  almost  impossible  not 
to  believe  that  each  to-day  is  the  end  of  the  world. 
Our  own  short  era  seems  invariably  to  be  in  the 
history  of  the  world  a  culmination  either  of  progress 
or  dissolution.  But  in  history  there  are  really  no 
culminations  and  no  cataclysms;  there  is  only  a 
feeble  dribble  of  progress,  sagging  first  to  one  side 


6  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

and  then  to  the  other,  but  always  dribbling  a  little 
in  one  direction.  Thus  the  French  Revolution  was 
for  everyone  in  it  the  end  or  the  beginning  of  the 
world.  The  aristocrat  dragged  through  the  streets 
of  Paris  to  the  guillotine  saw  himself  perishing  in 
a  holocaust  of  all  Law,  Order,  Beauty,  and  Good 
Manners;  the  men  who  dragged  him  saw  only  the 
sudden  birth  of  Justice  and  absolute  Liberty. 
Both  were  wrong,  just  as  both  would  have  been 
wrong  if  they  had  suddenly  found  themselves 
transported  some  thirty  years  on  into  the  Paris  of 
the  second  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  for 
the  aristocrat  would  have  seen  the  culmination  of 
his  hopes  and  the  Red  of  his  despair.  In  each  case 
it  was  only  a  little  sag  in  the  progress  of  history, 
first  to  this  side  and  then  to  that,  though  the  main 
stream  was  dribbling  slowly  in  the  direction  of 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity.  So  with  this  war. 
Its  tremendous  importance  to  us  produces  in  us 
a  delusion  that  in  the  history  of  the  world  it  is 
tremendously  important.  But  it  is  neither  the 
beginning  nor  the  end  of  anything;  it  is  just  a 
little  sagging  to  one  side,  to  violence  and  stupidity 
and  barbarism,  and  in  ten  or  fifteen  or  twenty  years' 
time  there  will  be  a  sagging  to  the  other  side,  to 
what  we  dimly  recognize  as  progress  and  civilization. 
The  other  fallacy  is  of  the  same  nature  as  that 
dreary  assertion  that  you  cannot  make  men  good 
by  Act  of  Parliament.  In  one  sense  the  assertion 
is  a  truism,  and  in  another  it  is  simply  false.  It 
is  true  that  human  society  is  so  simple  that  if  a 
majority  of  men  want  to  fight,  no  International 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 


Law,  no  treaties  or  tribunals  will  prevent  them; 
on  the  other  hand,  society  is  so  complex  that 
though  the  majority  of  men  and  women  do  not 
want  to  fight,  if  there  are  no  laws  and  rules  of 
conduct,  and  no  pacific  methods  of  settling  dis- 
putes, they  will  find  themselves  at  one  another's 
throats  before  they  are  aware  of  or  desire  it. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    CAUSES    OF   WARS 

BEFORE  proceeding  to  our  analysis  it  is  neces- 
sary to  say  something  about  the  causes  of 
war.  War  is  only  one  method  of  attempting 
to  settle  differences  and  disputes  which  arise  be- 
tween nations.  The  causes  of  war  are  those  differ- 
ences and  disputes,  and  if  we  could  substitute  other 
methods  of  settlement  which  men  would  willingly 
adopt,  we  should  have  taken  a  long  step  towards 
preventing  war.  The  differences  and  disputes 
arise  themselves  from  the  various  relations  in 
which  nations  stand  to  one  another.  Now,  dis- 
putes which  arise  from  one  kind  of  relation  may 
be  capable  of  a  settlement  by  some  method  which 
would  be  incapable  of  settling  disputes  arising 
from  another  kind  of  relation.  I  propose,  there- 
fore, to  group  roughly  the  different  relations  in 
which  nations  stand  to  one  another  and  the  kinds 
of  disputes  which  arise  from  them  and  have 
tended  to  produce  wars,  and  I  do  this  in  order 
that  in  the  course  of  the  enquiry,  when  I  examine 
the  different  methods  of  settling  disputes,  I  may 
refer  to  the  classes  of  disputes  which  have  tended 
to  war.  The  following  is  a  rough  classification: 

I.  Disputes  arising  from  legal  or  quasi-legal  re- 
lationship— e.  g.,  (a)  as  to  interpretation  of  treaties; 

8 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 


(b)  as  to  contractual  rights  and  duties;  (c)  as  to 
definitions  of  boundaries;  (d)  as  to  delicts. 

2.  Disputes  arising  from  economic  relationship, 
trade,  and  finance. 

3 .  Disputes  arising  from  administrative  or  polit- 
ical relationship — e.  g.,  as  to  questions  of  territory, 
subject  races,  expansion,  nationality,  supremacy 
and  predominant  influence. 

4.  Disputes  arising  from  what  may  be  called  social 
relationship — e.  g.,  as  to  questions  of  honor. 

This  classification  is  probably  not  exhaustive, 
but  it  does,  I  think,  draw  attention  to  important 
distinctions  in  the  origin  within  the  society  of 
nations  of  those  differences  which  have  led  to 
wars.  All  the  wars  of  the  last  century  can,  I  be- 
lieve, be  traced  to  one  or  more  differences  arising 
from  these  four  types  of  relationship  distinguished 
above.  Thus,  let  us  take  two  of  the  recent  wars 
in  which  Great  Powers  have  been  involved — the 
Spanish-American  and  the  Russo-Japanese.  The 
real  causes  of  the  first  war  were  two :  The  United 
States  and  Spain  had  to  settle  differences  which 
had  arisen  between  them  owing  to  economic  and 
political  relations  in  Cuba  and  as  to  the  quasi- 
legal  responsibility  of  Spain  for  a  particular  event, 
the  destruction  of  the  Maine.  It  is  arguable  and 
has  been  argued  that  the  economic  and  political 
differences  could  and  would  have  been  settled  by 
diplomatic  means  if  the  second  difference  had  not 
arisen.  Spain  herself  proposed  that  the  quasi- 
legal  difference  should  be  settled  by  arbitration. 


10  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  United  States  refused,  and  the  only  remaining 
method  of  attempting  a  settlement  was  resorted 
to — namely,  force  of  arms. 

The  Russo-Japanese  war  arose  from  three  causes. 
There  was,  first,  the  dispute  which  arose  from  the 
legal  relationship  of  Russia,  Japan,  and  China 
established  by  the  treaty  of  1902.  But  this  dis- 
pute was  complicated  by  differences  arising  from 
the  political  and  administrative  relationship  of 
Russia  and  Japan  in  "the  spheres  of  influence" 
claimed  by  them  in  Manchuria  and  Korea. 
Thirdly,  questions  of  international  trade  arose  out 
of  the  concessions  to  a  Russian  speculator  in 
Korea. 


CHAPTER  III 

INTERNATIONAL    LAW 

IN  treating  of  the  system  of  international  rela- 
tionship and  the  different  pieces  of  inter- 
national machinery  for  ordering  the  society  of 
nations,  the  first  question  to  be  considered  is  the 
general  rules  which  regulate  the  conduct  of  nations 
to  one  another  in  their  various  relations.  Inter- 
national Law  is  the  body  of  such  rules.  I  do  not 
propose  to  touch  such  academic  questions  as 
whether  International  Law  is  or  is  not  law,  or 
even  the  question  what  it  really  is,  but  no  practical 
enquiry  is  possible  into  the  means  of  pacifically 
settling  international  differences  without  a  clear 
understanding  of  the  part  which  International 
Law  has  played,  and  will  play,  in  the  matter. 

It  would  be  an  easy  and  a  human  thing  to  say, 
what  you  may  hear  said  repeatedly  to-day  in  any 
intellectual  company  of  human  beings,  that  Inter- 
national Law  has  been  proved  not  to  exist.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  whole  history  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  of  this  war  shows  that  Inter- 
national Law  does  exist,  and  is  of  supreme  impor- 
tance. The  cry  that  it  does  not  exist  is  merely  the 
cry  of  shallow  despair  at  finding  that  it  does  not 
exist  precisely  in  the  form  that  we  desire.  The 
fact  that  the  rules  of  International  Law  are 


12  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

broken,  and  that  those  rules  have  not  been  able 
to  prevent  certain  wars,  does  not  prove  that  the 
rules  do  not  exist,  or  that  they  have  not  been,  and 
will  not  be,  the  most  potent  instruments  in  keeping 
the  peace.  People  still  do  commit  murders,  and 
a  man  occasionally  spits  into  the  drawing-room 
fire,  but  it  would  be  a  false  deduction  that  there- 
fore the  law  against  murder  is  useless,  or  that  the 
social  rule  which  regulates  the  conduct  of  gentle- 
men in  drawing-rooms  does  not  help  people  to 
repress  a  natural  desire  to  expectorate.  The  mere 
fact  that  every  belligerent  is  discussing  questions 
of  International  Law  more  or  less  acrimoniously 
with  neutrals,  and  is  violently  accusing  its  belliger- 
ent opponents  of  breaking  International  Law, 
shows  that  whatever  we  mean  by  the  words, 
"International  Law"  has  a  very  practical  effect 
upon  international  relations. 

It  is  clear  that  unless  there  are  certain  general 
rules  generally  observed  regulating  the  conduct  of 
nations  to  one  another,  and  forming  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  society  of  nations,  a  peaceful  solution  of 
international  differences  will  always  be  doubtful. 
In  the  growth  of  those  rules  during  the  nineteenth 
century  certain  points  deserve  attention.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  only  since  the  Congress  of  Vienna 
that  there  has  been  any  real  attempt  consciously 
to  make  these  rules  in  the  sense  in  which  law  is 
now  made  in  States.  Within  a  State  the  laws  are 
not  merely  customs  and  rules  generally  observed 
and  admitted,  but  they  are  also  "made"  by  legis- 
lative and  judicial  organs.  Ever  since  the  time  of 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  13 

Grotius  there  have  been  many  customs  and  rules 
in  the  society  of  nations  observed  and  admitted 
by  the  nations,  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  there  were  not  even  rudimentary 
organs,  legislative  or  judicial,  which  could  lay 
these  rules  down  as  law.  In  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury there  has  been  a  rapid  development  in  two 
directions. 

In  the  first  place,  nations  have  attempted  to 
substitute  agreements  or  treaties  for  general  rules. 
Treaties  clearly  do  not,  as  a  rule,  make  Interna- 
tional Law;  they  are  like  contracts  or  agreements 
between  individuals.  Owing  to  the  want  of  any 
law-making  organ,  nations  have  tried  to  regulate 
their  relations  to  one  another  by  an  enormous 
number  of  such  separate  agreements.  The  efficacy 
of  this  system  will  be  discussed  when  I  deal  with 
treaties.  In  the  second  place,  for  the  first  time  in 
history,  during  the  nineteenth  century  attempts 
were  made  on  a  considerable  scale  to  make  Inter- 
national law  in  conferences  and  congresses.  The 
success  of  these  attempts  will  be  considered  when  I 
come  to  deal  with  conferences  and  congresses; 
here  it  is  sufficient  to  note  that  these  nineteenth- 
century  assemblies  are  undoubtedly  the  first  signs 
of  the  growth  of  an  International  Legislative  organ. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  our  immediate  purpose  to 
examine  more  closely  into  International  Law,  but  it 
is  advisable  to  state  shortly  a  few  facts  about  it 
which  really  require  no  detailed  proof,  but  have 
great  bearing  upon  our  enquiry.  A  large  number 
of  its  rules  are  quite  definitely  admitted,  are  acted 


14  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

upon  every  day,  and  really  do  help  to  regulate 
pacifically  international  society.  On  the  other 
hand,  much  of  it  is  vague  and  uncertain.  This  is 
due  largely  to  two  facts:  there  is  no  recognized 
international  organ  for  making  International  Law, 
and  no  judicial  organ  for  interpreting  it.  The  con- 
sequences are  two:  whenever  new  circumstances 
arise  which  require  a  new  rule  of  conduct  for  nations, 
the  nations  concerned  have  to  set  about  making 
the  new  rule  by  bargaining  and  negotiation.  If 
they  cannot  agree,  either  it  remains  uncertain  what 
the  law  is,  or  the  question  has  to  be  settled  by  war. 
Secondly,  when  there  is  already  a  rule,  but  nations 
disagree  as  to  its  interpretation,  they  again  have 
to  attempt  by  bargaining  and  negotiation  to  come 
to  some  agreement  as  to  how  it  shall  be  interpreted. 
And,  again,  if  they  cannot  agree,  the  only  method 
left  is  to  cut  the  knot  by  war. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TREATIES 

TNDER  treaties  I  include,  of  course,  all  inter- 
IJ  national  instruments  of  agreement — i.  e., 
conventions,  declarations,  etc.  Very  few 
people  realize  the  enormous  number  of  such  in- 
struments in  existence.  If  you  open  at  random  a 
collection  like  the  great  Recueil  General  de  Traites 
of  Martens,  you  find  that  in  one  series,  which  is  not 
absolutely  exhaustive,  there  have  been  collected 
between  800  and  900  treaties  concluded  in  the  tea 
years  1 874-1 883 .  These  instruments  deal  with  ques- 
tions which  arise  from  all  the  four  types  of  relation- 
ship given  above.  Far  the  greater  number  of  these 
agreements  are  scrupulously  carried  out.  In  a 
sense  they  form  the  substitute  for  statute  law  in 
the  society  of  nations.  The  whole  body  of  Anglo- 
French  treaties,  for  instance,  plays  the  part  of 
statute  law  regulating  the  relations  of  England  and 
France. 

But  the  history  of  treaties  brings  one  face  to  face 
at  once  with  what  is  at  the  root  of  the  problem  of 
preventing  war.  The  difficulties  which  have  beset 
nations  have  been  how  to  obtain  guarantees  for  the 
carrying  out  of  treaties,  and  at  the  same  time  how 
to  make  it  possible  to  alter  treaties  in  accordance 
with  altering  circumstances.  What  is  required  in 

is 


16  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

every  kind  of  society  in  which  things  grow  and 
decay  is  an  arrangement  which  maintains  the 
existing  order  of  things,  and  yet  allows  for  upsetting 
it  in  an  orderly  manner. 

Now,  as  long  as  a  treaty  remains  merely  an  agree- 
ment between  two  or  more  isolated  sovereign 
States,  it  is  clear  that  nothing  can  be  included  in 
the  treaty  which  can  ensure  compliance  with  it. 
When  many  of  the  nations  of  Europe  agreed  to  the 
Treaty  of  London  of  1867  to  constitute  Luxem- 
burg a  neutral  State,  they  tried  to  make  the  ful- 
filment of  that  treaty  more  certain  by  guaranteeing 
the  neutrality.  "Ce  principe  (neutrality),"  they 
affirmed,  "est  et  demeure  place  sous  la  sanction 
de  la  garantie  collective  des  Puissances  signataires." 
That  is  to  say,  they  first  agreed  to  respect  the 
neutrality  of  Luxemburg,  and  then  agreed  to 
guarantee  collectively,  not  the  neutrality  of  Luxem- 
burg, but  their  agreement  to  respect  it.  Suppose 
the  Powers  had  merely  agreed  to  constitute  Luxem- 
burg a  neutral  State,  and  to  respect  its  neutrality; 
then,  if  a  Power  desires  to  violate  the  neutrality, 
in  the  last  resource  the  only  thing  that  that 
Power  will  have  to  consider  is:  "Will  any  other 
signatory  Power  regard  my  breach  of  this  agree- 
ment as  a  casus  belli?"  But  things  are  inexactly 
the  same  state  when  the  neutrality  is  placed  under 
the  collective  guarantee  of  the  signatory  Powers. 
There  is  no  "sanction"  and  no  "guarantee," 
except  the  agreement  of  isolated  sovereign  States. 
The  insertion  of  the  words  "sanction"  and 
"garantie  collective"  only  makes  the  form  of  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  17 

agreement  a  little  more  solemn  than  if  they  were 
left  out.  There  is  nothing  inside  the  treaty,  and 
nothing  outside  the  States  themselves,  no  collective 
power  or  organization  or  machinery  or  guarantee 
which  makes  it  one  jot  more  certain  that  the 
treaty  will  be  fulfilled  or  the  conditions  established 
by  the  treaty  maintained. 

The  whole  intention  of  treaties  is  to  maintain  an 
existing  order  of  things,  to  establish  a  stable  society 
of  nations.  They  seek  to  embody  and  perpetuate 
the  status  quo  in  ink  and  paper.  Each  is  an  isolated 
promise,  and  the  value  of  a  promise  depends  upon 
the  good  faith  of  the  promisor  and  his  ability  to 
make  good  his  word.  The  ordinary  way  of  making 
these  international  agreements  is  by  the  casual 
bargaining  of  diplomacy,  not  on  the  face  of  it  a 
very  good  way  of  arriving  at  arrangements  designed 
to  be  eternal.  When  one  considers  these  facts,  one 
wonders,  not  that  some  treaties  are  broken,  but 
that  such  an  enormous  number  are  fulfilled. 
Diplomatists  themselves  occasionally  recognize  the 
thinness  of  the  thread  upon  which  they  have  hung 
international  relations.  Thus,  at  the  Conference 
of  London  in  1871,  the  Powers  solemnly  declared 
that  "it  is  an  essential  principle  of  the  law  of 
nations  that  no  Power  can  liberate  itself  from  the 
engagement  of  a  treaty,  or  modify  the  stipulations 
thereof,  unless  with  the  consent  of  the  contracting 
Powers  by  means  of  an  amicable  settlement."  And 
yet  a  leading  writer  on  International  Law,  in  a 
recent  work,  comes  to  the  correct  but.  astonishing 
conclusion  that  "the  standard  value"  of  this 


18  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

declaration  "has  become  doubtful  again,"  because, 
when  Russia  in  1886  suddenly  notified  her  with- 
drawal from  Article  59  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  of 
1878,  the  signatory  Powers  tacitly  consented  with 
the  exception  of  Great  Britain,  who  protested. 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  an  agreement, 
arrived  at  by  bargaining  and  compromise,  designed 
to  be  eternal,  and  containing  no  provisions  for 
varying  or  modifying  it,  is  the  worst  method  of 
maintaining  the  order  of  things  established  by 
such  agreements,  because  the  sole  way  of  modifying 
them  will  often  be  to  break  them.  It  is  only  in  a 
world  in  which  nothing  ever  changed  that  they 
would  succeed,  and  there  they  would  be  unneces- 
sary. Nations  themselves  are  always  developing, 
and  their  economic,  political,  and  administrative 
relations  often  change  fundamentally.  It  is  abso- 
lutely imperative,  therefore,  on  occasions  that  a 
nation  should  demand  an  alteration  in  the  status 
quo.  It  can  only  effect  this  by  the  bargaining  of 
diplomacy,  and  any  other  nation  whose  interest 
it  is  to  maintain  the  status  quo  can  bring  the  first 
up  against  the  brick  wall  of  treaties  which  profess 
to  bind  nations  for  all  time.  The  only  method  left 
of  bargaining  oneself  out  of  such  an  agreement  is  to 
threaten  to  break  it,  and  therefore  to  appeal  to 
arms. 

The  repudiation  of  treaties  by  Russia  many 
years  ago  caused  Mill  to  propose  that  nations 
should  bind  themselves  only  for  a  definite  term  of 
years.  In  certain  cases  this  is  clearly  the  only 
reasonable  course,  and  has,  in  fact,  been  done, 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  19 

especially  in  commercial  treaties.  No  business  man 
would  enter  into  a  business  agreement  which 
bound  him  for  ever,  and  in  treaties  regulating  the 
commercial  and  financial  relationships  of  nations 
the  expediency  of  including  a  time  limit  has  been 
acknowledged.  Thus  the  final  act  of  the  Confer- 
ence of  Berlin,  1884,  by  articles  1-5  laid  it  down 
that  the  commerce  of  all  nations  should  enjoy 
complete  freedom  within  the  Congo  area,  but  it 
was  stipulated  that  the  franchise  d?  entree  should  be 
for  only  20  years,  after  which  the  matter  might  be 
reconsidered  by  each  Power.  But  in  many  cases, 
particularly  where  the  larger  political  and  admin- 
istrative relations  of  nations  are  involved,  there  are 
obvious  disadvantages  in  the  time  limit.  People 
who  have  just  settled  a  difficult  and  dangerous 
international  question  do  not  look  forward  with 
complacency  to  the  whole  matter  being  raised 
again,  probably  in  its  original  form,  at  a  definite 
and  possibly  inconvenient  moment  some  years 
afterwards.  Indeed,  the  time  limit  for  the  com- 
mercial agreement  in  1884  was  not  accepted  at  the 
Berlin  Conference  without  demur  by  some  nations 
for  precisely  these  reasons.  It  is  well  known  that 
the  period  just  before  the  "falling  in"  of  a  com- 
mercial treaty  between  nations  is  often  a  period  of 
acute  tension,  and  it  has  been  pointed  out  as  sig- 
nificant that  the  present  war  occurred  during 
such  a  time  of  tension  between  Russia  and 
Germany. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  great  treaties 
which  were  designed  to  introduce  a  millennium  of 


20  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

peace  have  been  precisely  those  which  turned  out 
to  be  the  most  dangerous  threateners  of  war. 
Vienna  and  Berlin  have  always  formed  fruitful 
themes  for  the  wise  cynics  who  like  to  dwell  upon 
international  bad  faith  and  the  absurdity  of 
regulating  the  future  of  Europe  by  treaties  which 
are  only  made  to  be  broken.  But  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  and  the  Berlin  Congress  did  not  lay  up 
trouble  for  Europe  because  there  is  any  absurdity 
in  founding  the  society  of  European  nations  upon  a 
written  constitution,  nor  merely  because  many  of 
the  details  of  the  constitutions  framed  in  1815  and 
1878  were  arrived  at,  we  now  see,  upon  wrong 
principles.  The  really  important  thing  to  realize 
about  these  treaties  is  that  they  came  into  being 
before  the  world  was  ready  for  them.  To  be  suc- 
cessful, treaties  of  this  kind  would  require  a  highly 
organized  society  of  nations.  Such  treaties  are 
legal  documents,  fixing  in  more  or  less  precise 
language  the  constitution  .of  Europe  and  the  rights 
and  duties  of  nations.  But  even  constitution 
makers  and  law  makers  are  human,  and  are 
therefore  liable  not  only  to  err,  but  to  be  ambigu- 
ous :  so  that  legal  documents  of  that  kind  would  be 
certain  actually  to  promote  discord  in  any  society 
unless  two  conditions  were  fulfilled.  The  first 
condition  is  that  the  society  should  be  so  organized 
that  there  is  a  well-established  and  easy  method 
of  modifying  the  legal  constitution;  the  second  is 
that  there  should  be  a  well-established  and  easy 
method  of  interpreting  the  legal  document  when  a 
difference  as  to  its  meaning  arises  between  in- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  21 

dividuals  in  the  society.  Now,  both  these  conditions 
are  unfulfilled  in  the  society  of  nations,  and  it  is 
clear  that  while  this  is  so  any  elaborate  attempt  to 
found  a  stable  constitution  by  means  of  legal  bonds 
will  do  as  much  to  promote  as  to  prevent  war. 

It  remains  to  make  one  further  remark  about  all 
treaties,  which  follows  naturally  from  the  preceding 
paragraph.  The  real  value  of  treaties  is  in  the 
future.  The  great  point  of  them  lies  in  the  fact 
that  they  create  a  legal  bond  between  nations. 
They  create  rights  and  duties  which  are  clearly 
capable  of  being  the  subjects  of  judicial  decisions. 
They  tend  to  transform  political  and  administra- 
tive relations  of  States  into  legal  relations,  and  so 
they  change  the  nature  of  the  disputes  and  differ- 
ences that  arise  from  those  relations.  Political 
and  administrative  differences  are  often  of  a  nature 
which  would  make  it  extremely  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  even  to  state  a  case  to  a  court  for 
decision  upon  questions  either  of  facts  or  law.  But 
once  the  political  and  administrative  relations  have 
been  defined,  however  vaguely,  and  rendered  legal 
by  the  words  of  a  treaty,  any  "incident"  that  may 
occur  afterwards  can  easily  be  adjudicated  upon 
by  a  court,  for  the  question  will  usually  reduce  it- 
self to  the  ordinary  judicial  question :  "  Given  these 
facts  and  this  contract,  what  are  the  rights  and 
duties  of  the  parties  in  the  present  circumstances 
under  the  contract?"  This  can  best  be  shown  by 
taking  an  actual  example,  the  Anglo-French 
Agreement  of  1904.  Prior  to  1904  the  political 
and  administrative  relations  of  France  and  Britain 


22  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

in  Egypt  and  Morocco,  but  particularly  in  Egypt, 
were  of  a  kind  which  not  only  created  friction 
between  the  two  nations,  but  were  peculiarly 
dangerous  because  it  would  have  been  difficult  to 
know  how  to  begin  to  settle  any  dispute  arising 
out  of  them.  The  political  relations  and  the  re- 
ciprocal rights  and  duties  of  the  two  nations  in 
Egypt  were  of  so  vague  and  ill-defined  a  nature 
that  it  might  have  been  impossible  to  agree  upon 
what  basis  to  refer  any  particular  question  to  a 
court  of  arbitration  or  other  judicial  body.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  the  Agreement  of  1904  defines 
the  relations  in  any  but  the  broadest  and,  indeed, 
the  vaguest  terms,  but  the  important  point  is 
that  it  does  define  them  in  such  a  way  as  to 
create  legal  rights  and  duties.  France  has  bound 
herself  not  to  "obstruct  the  action  of  Great  Britain 
in  that  country  (Egypt)  by  asking  that  a  limit  of 
time  be  fixed  for  the  British  occupation  or  in  any 
other  manner."  The  consequence  is  that  any 
question  of  French  or  British  action  in  Egypt  is 
now  peculiarly  suitable  to  be  the  subject  of  a 
judicial  decision  in  the  form:  "Is  this  act  in  con- 
formity with  the  legal  rights  and  duties  created 
by  the  Agreement?" 

But  the  importance  of  these  facts  is  obscured 
at  the  present  moment  by  the  inchoate  organiza- 
tion of  the  Society  of  Nations.  To  transform 
vague  political  relations  into  definite  legal  obliga- 
tions is  of  value  only  if  there  is  an  established 
judicial  system  to  which  questions  falling  within 
the  scope  of  those  obligations  can  be  easily  and 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 


almost  automatically  referred.  But  there  is  at 
present  really  no  such  system,  and  it  is  normally 
as  difficult  to  settle  that  a  particular  dispute  shall 
be  referred,  say,  to  arbitration,  as  to  settle  the 
whole  dispute  by  negotiation.  This  is  not  the 
place  in  which  I  propose  to  discuss  international 
judicial  organs,  nor  do  I  wish  to  prejudge  the  ques- 
tion of  compulsory  arbitration  as  the  panacea  of 
war,  but  one  can  say  this  with  certainty,  that  if 
war  is  ever  to  become  an  impossibility  or  even  an 
improbability  in  the  society  of  nations,  there 
must  be  in  that  society  a  regular,  easily  working, 
recognized  system  of  obtaining  in  some  kinds  of 
international  disputes  a  judicial  decision.  When 
that  time  comes  the  enormous  value  of  treaties 
will  become  apparent  in  ensuring  that  when  dis- 
putes arise  they  usually  are  of  such  a  kind  that 
they  can  be  referred  to  a  judicial  tribunal  for 
decision.  Treaties  perform  in  international  society 
the  part  of  anaesthetics  in  surgery;  they  get  the 
patient  into  a  condition  which  makes  it  possible  to 
operate;  but,  unfortunately,  up  to  the  present,  the 
means  and  instruments  for  operating  have  been 
wanting.  It  is  no  good  giving  gas  to  a  man  with 
toothache  unless  you  have  a  dentist  with  his 
nippers  on  the  premises;  and  it  is  no  good  dosing 
international  society  with  law  in  treaties  unless 
you  have  a  judge  handy  to  decide  the  legal  dis- 
putes. 


CONFERENCES,   CONGRESSES,  AND  THE   CONCERT  OF 
EUROPE 

IT  HAS  become  apparent  from  the  previous 
chapters  that  in  international  society  three 
things  at  least  are  wanted  if  disputes  and 
differences  are  to  be  amicably  settled.  First  it  is 
necessary  that  the  general  rules  or  laws  regulating 
the  relations  of  States  should  be  laid  down  with 
authority  and  precision;  second,  the  society  of 
nations  should  be  founded  upon  a  stable  constitu- 
tion; thirdly,  it  should  be  possible  to  make  new 
rules  and  alter  the  constitution  without  great 
difficulty  or  violent  upheavals.  In  the  society  of 
which  the  units  are  individual  men  and  women,  these 
functions  are  usually  performed  by  what  we  call 
legislatures;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  in  the  society 
of  which  the  units  are  nations  the  first  real  attempts 
to  provide  for  these  functions  have  been  made  in 
the  nineteenth  century  by  international  organs 
bearing  a  strong  resemblance  to  rudimentary 
legislatures.  From  the  pacifist's  point  of  view  the 
nineteenth  century  should  be  remembered  as 
much  for  its  Conferences,  its  Congresses,  and  its 
Concert  of  Europe  as  for  the  growth  of  arbitration. 
It  should  first  be  observed  that  in  States  legis- 
lation consists  roughly  of  two  kinds.  There  is, 

24 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  25 

first,  the  body  of  general  rules  which  merely  regu- 
late the  conduct  of  individuals  to  one  another — 
e.  g.,  nearly  all  criminal  laws,  laws  of  contract,  sale, 
etc.;  in  the  second  place,  there  is  the  "law  of  the 
land,"  which  defines  the  constitution  and  structure, 
administrative  and  political,  of  society  within  the 
State — e.  g.,  the  Act  of  Union  of  1707  and  the  Home 
Rule  Act.  The  power  of  initiating  and  altering 
both  kinds  of  law  is,  as  a  rule,  vested  in  the  same 
legislative  organ.  Now,  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
for  the  first  time,  a  tentative,  sometimes  conscious 
and  sometimes  unconscious,  movement  has  shown 
itself  towards  two  similar  kinds  of  legislation  for 
international  society  by  means  of  representatives 
of  nations  meeting  together  much  in  the  same  way 
as  representatives  meet  in  legislative  assemblies  of 
States.  I  propose  now  to  examine  what  has  been 
done  by  these  meetings  and  concerts,  and  in  that 
examination  it  will  appear,  I  think,  that  remark- 
able progress  has  been  made  towards  the  possi- 
bility of  a  peaceful  organization  of  international 
society.  But  it  is  necessary  at  the  outset  to  insist 
upon  the  importance  for  anyone  in  search  of  "some 
international  authority"  or  "some  form  of  inter- 
national organization,"  of  distinguishing  between 
these  two  kinds  of  legislation.  It  is  only  by  neg- 
lecting to  distinguish  them  that  enthusiasts  have 
been  led  to  believe  that  war  can  be  abolished  by 
some  system  of  universal  compulsory  arbitration. 
Neither  kind  of  legislation  could  possibly  find  a 
substitute  in  any  judicial  process.  The  Confer- 
ences which  led  to  the  founding  of  a  sovereign 

4 


26  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

State  in  Greece,  and  the  conference  which  con- 
stituted Luxemburg  a  neutral  State,  did  as  much 
to  prevent  war  as  the  Alabama  arbitration.  The 
work  of  those  conferences  could  no  more  be  done 
by  a  judicial  tribunal  than  the  question  of  Home 
Rule  for  Ireland  could  possibly  have  been  decided 
in  a  court  of  law.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  conceive  of 
any  working  form  of  society  in  which,  say,  a  court 
of  law  had  not  only  to  interpret  but  also  to  make 
an  Act  like  the  Sale  of  Goods  Act. 

I  propose  first  to  examine  briefly  what  exactly 
has  been  effected  by  these  Conferences,  Congresses, 
etc.,  and  then  to  enquire  more  closely  into  the  way 
they  work,  their  possibilities  and  limitations.  I 
shall,  as  far  as  possible,  deal  separately  with  their 
achievements  in  making  general  rules  regulating 
the  conduct  of  nations  and  in  laying  down  a  con- 
stitution and  arranging  the  political  relations  of 
nations.  First,  as  to  the  general  rules:  at  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  an 
international  law  of  this  kind  was  made  by  the 
nations  of  Europe  in  general  assembly.  The 
declaration  in  the  Final  Act  as  to  the  freedom  of 
navigation  on  rivers  lays  down  a  general  principle 
of  international  action  in  exactly  the  same  way  as 
a  law  of  trespass  or  right  of  way  would  prescribe 
within  a  State  a  general  principle  of  individual 
action.  It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  the  navigation 
declaration  was  not  only  the  first  example  of  de- 
liberate international  legislation,  but  it  led  to  the 
creation  of  the  first  international  Executive  in  the 
Danube  Commission. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  27 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Congress  of  Vienna 
was  followed  by  any  very  rich  crop  of  this  kind  of 
legislation  during  the  next  century.  The  full  har- 
vest consists  only  of  some  half-hearted  declarations 
at  that  Congress  with  regard  to  the  abolition  of 
the  slave  trade,  some  remarkable  provisions  re- 
garding freedom  of  commerce  and  acquisition  of 
territory  in  Africa  at  the  Congo  Conference  of 
1884,  laws  of  war  made  by  the  Declarations  of 
Paris  and  St.  Petersburg  and  the  Geneva  Conven- 
tion, and  finally  the  achievements  of  the  Hague 
Conferences.  This  is  not  a  very  brilliant  record, 
and  for  our  present  purposes  only  two  remarks  are 
necessary  upon  it.  In  the  first  place,  it  does  show 
that  it  is  possible  to  call  together  representatives 
of  nations  who  will  make  international  laws 
affecting  vital  interests  of  nations.  The  Congo 
Conference  dealt  with  the  economic  and  political 
relations  of  States,  with  those  fundamental  ques- 
tions of  trade  and  expansion,  territory  and  subject 
races  which,  stimulating  at  once  the  passions  of 
cupidity  and  patriotism,  are  in  the  present  stage 
of  the  world  peculiarly  liable  to  lead  to  violent 
actions.  It  is  true  that  the  Conference  only  made 
rules  for  a  part  of  Africa,  and  that  those  rules  did 
nothing  to  relieve  the  subsequent  tragedy  of  that 
unhappy  country.  But  it  is  none  the  less  true 
that  the  object,  not  altogether  unsuccessful,  of  the 
Powers  represented — and  they  included  all  the 
great  colonizing  and  acquisitive  Powers — was  to 
lay  down  general  principles  of  international  con- 
duct in  one  of  the  least-exploited  parts  of  the  world, 


28  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

so  that  the  dangers  of  friction  and  rivalry  from  its 
exploitation  might  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  As 
Bismarck  said  in  his  introductory  address,  the 
fundamental  idea  of  the  programme  of  invitation 
was  to  facilitate  access  to  Central  Africa  for  all 
commercial  nations,  and  to  prescribe  formalities 
which  nations  should  be  bound  to  observe  in  future 
occupations  of  territory  on  the  coast  of  Africa. 
No  one  who  reads  the  Final  Act  of  the  Conference 
can  doubt  that  if  its  provisions  were  extended  to  all 
the  "colonies,"  and  "suzerainties,"  and  "spheres  of 
influence"  of  civilized  Powers  in  uncivilized  parts 
of  the  earth,  one  at  least  of  the  greatest  menaces 
to  the  peace  of  Europe  would  be  abolished.  With 
free  access  to  the  flags  of  all  nations,  with  complete 
liberty  of  commerce,  with  no  concession  of  com- 
mercial monopolies  and  privileges,  we  should  hear 
less  of  Far  Eastern  Questions,  of  the  Partition  of 
China,  of  Persia  and  Bagdad  and  Morocco. 

The  second  point  with  regard  to  international 
legislation  of  this  kind  is  that  it  has  concerned 
itself  far  too  much  with  war  and  far  too  little  with 
peace.  Perhaps  this  is  because  Conferences  and 
Congresses  are  usually  summoned  by  Kings  and 
Emperors  and  attended  by  diplomatists,  two 
classes  of  persons  who  by  tradition  are  perpetually 
thinking  and  talking  of  war.  At  any  rate,  before 
the  Hague  Conference,  international  legislation  in 
Conferences  had  taken  as  its  most  important  sub- 
ject the  Laws  of  War,  and  again,  at  The  Hague 
Conferences,  if  one  excepts  arbitration,  the  only 
question  really  discussed  and  the  only  results 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  29 

arrived  at  concerned  the  conduct  of  nations  during 
war.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  this  way  Inter- 
national Law  and  Conferences  have  not  been 
given  a  fair  chance.  What  should  we  think  of  a 
State  in  which  there  were  no  laws  to  prevent  riot 
and  murder  and  violence,  and  no  police  to  enforce 
the  law,  but  yet  there  were  very  detailed  and  com- 
plicated laws  governing  the  conduct  of  persons 
engaged  in  riots,  murder,  and  violence?  To  ap- 
peal to  force  is  to  appeal  to  the  opposite  of  law; 
and  it  is  natural  that  nations  should  be  far  more 
ready  to  break  the  rules  of  International  Law  dur- 
ing war  than  during  peace.  The  Laws  of  War 
should  be  not  the  first,  but  the  last,  to  be  made  in 
the  Society  of  Nations.  If  Conferences  and  Con- 
gresses were  called  for  the  purpose  of  making  rules 
of  conduct  during  peace  in  matters  which  con- 
tinually cause  and  will  cause  friction  between  na- 
tions, the  popular  contempt  for  International  Law 
would  prove  to  be  undeserved,  and  more  good 
would  be  done  by  one  such  conference  than  by  all 
the  rules  ever  devised  for  helping  men  to  kill  one 
another  humanely.  Take  the  question  of  the 
rights  and  treatment  of  nationals  of  one  country 
in  the  territory  of  another.  This  is  a  question 
which  has  and  will  again  endanger  the  peace  of 
the  world.  Nations  have  tried  to  settle  it  piece- 
meal by  treaties.  The  Law  has  therefore  varied 
from  time  to  time  and  from  territory  to  territory, 
and  a  fluctuating  law  of  this  kind  is  itself  a  danger. 
If  the  representatives  of  nations  could  arrive  at 
agreement  in  the  complicated  Final  Acts  of  the 


30  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Hague  Conferences,  it  is  absurd  to  believe  that 
they  could  not  settle  satisfactorily  at  a  conference 
what  is  after  all  a  comparatively  simple  question. 

If  the  achievements  of  Conferences  in  the  making 
of  general  rules  of  international  conduct  are  dis- 
appointing, one  can  look  back  with  more  satis- 
faction to  their  efforts  to  settle  the  larger  political 
relations  of  States  and  the  constitution  of  national 
society.  This  is  possibly  not  the  ordinary  view, 
even  of  historians,  but  if  one  be  content  to  view 
the  past  soberly  and  without  impatience,  it  is,  I 
think,  the  true  one.  The  fact  is  that  it  was  only 
at  the  end  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  that  emperors 
and  statesmen  began  to  think  and  to  talk  of 
"some  form  of  international  organization"  instead 
of  war  and  offensive  alliances  as  a  practical  method 
of  constructing  international  society.  One  cannot 
altogether  neglect  in  an  enquiry  of  this  kind  the 
hopes,  the  theories,  the  intrigues  that  were  trum- 
peted to  the  world  or  whispered  in  audiences  at 
Vienna  and  Aix-la-Chapelle  and  Troppau  and 
Laibach  and  Verona.  The  hopes  and  intrigues  of 
the  Congresses  and  of  the  Holy  Alliance  went  the 
way  of  all  hopes  and  intrigues:  a  tiny  portion  of 
them  succeeded  and  an  enormous  part  of  them 
failed;  but  none  the  less  there  was  born  of  them  a 
new  and  a  practical  system  of  regulating  the 
affairs  of  Europe. 

The  begetter,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  foster-father, 
of  that  system  was  unfortunately  the  unstable 
mind  of  the  Emperor  Alexander.  He  began  with  a 
vague  idea  of  a  kind  of  concert  of  Europe,  which 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  31 

should  preserve  the  "public  peace,  the  tranquility 
of  States,  the  inviolability  of  possessions,  and  the 
faith  of  treaties."  The  great  Congress  of  Vienna 
was  undoubtedly  conceived  as,  in  a  sense,  a  Par- 
liament of  Nations  settling  the  Constitution  of 
Europe.  From  this  conception  again  grew  the 
idea,  actually  embodied  in  the  Second  Peace  of 
Paris  of  1815,  that  questions  affecting  "the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  the  nations"  should  be  brought 
before  and  decided  at  similar  meetings  to  be  held 
at  fixed  intervals,  and  the  Congresses  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  Troppau,  Laibach,  and  Verona  were,  in 
fact,  called  with  that  object. 

The  immediate  result  of  these  Congresses,  of 
the  "European  System,"  and  of  the  Holy  Alliance 
was  failure,  and  it  is  really  important  to  under- 
stand the  causes  of  that  failure.  In  the  first  place, 
the  idea  of  the  new  system  was  continually  vacil- 
lating. At  one  moment  the  nations  were  to  form 
"a  general  association  having  for  foundation  the 
compact  of  Vienna  and  the  Treaty  of  Paris,"  a 
kind  of  European  Confederation  with  an  im- 
mutable constitution  and  a  legislative  assembly 
meeting  at  fixed  intervals.  At  another  time  and 
more  frequently  Europe  was  considered  as  under 
the  hegemony  of  the  four  great  Powers,  bound  by 
alliance  to  preserve  the  status  quo,  and  to  act  to- 
gether in  international  politics.  Now,  here  we 
have  no  academic,  but  a  living  question,  and  a 
vital  difference.  "Some  sort  of"  confederation  is 
at  the  opposite  pole  of  international  systems  from 
"some  sort  of"  hegemony.  An  hegemony  of 


32  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

powerful  and  allied  States  must  be  prepared  to 
impose  its  will  upon  Europe  or  the  world.  Peace 
will  depend  upon  two  things — the  maintenance  of 
overwhelming  power  in  the  great  nations,  and  the 
continuance  of  their  agreement.  One  has  only  to 
state  this  truism  to  see  that  such  an  hegemony 
must  be  an  unstable  international  system.  Na- 
tional power  is  itself  a  shifting,  fluctuating  thing; 
at  any  particular  moment  it  can  be  tested  only  by 
war,  and  it  exists,  therefore,  for  the  most  part,  only 
in  the  fallible  imagination  and  estimation  of  men. 
Nor  is  the  mere  hope  that  three  or  four  powerful 
sovereign  States  will  continue  to  find  themselves 
in  agreement  a  good  foundation  upon  which  to 
build  international  society.  The  congresses  very 
soon  showed  this.  They  ceased  to  be  in  any  sense 
rudimentary  legislative  organs,  and  became  merely 
the  meetings  of  diplomatists  negotiating  to  main- 
tain the  agreement  and  alliance  of  a  few  powerful 
States.  They  collapsed  at  the  first  real  difference 
of  opinion. 

But  the  visionaries  of  1915  can  learn  another 
lesson  from  the  faded  and  broken  visions  of  1815. 
The  congresses  failed  because  their  authors  re- 
fused to  face  and  answer  a  fundamental  question 
as  to  the  constitution  of  international  society.  If 
there  is  to  be  any  kind  of  legislative  organ,  what 
are  the  questions  which  that  organ  is  to  be  com- 
petent to  deal  with?  Alexander  and  his  Con- 
tinental allies  proposed  to  discuss  at  the  congresses, 
not  only  the  relations  of  States  to  one  another, 
but  the  internal  affairs  of  nations.  Castlereagh 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  33 

first,  and  Canning  later,  very  soon  showed  that 
they  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  a  system. 
At  Troppau,  Castlereagh  refused  to  agree  to  a 
protocol  which  would  "lead  to  a  species  of  general 
government  in  Europe,  with  a  superintending 
Directory,  destructive  of  all  correct  notions  of  in- 
ternal sovereign  authority."  In  1823  Canning 
wrote:  "Our  engagements  have  reference  wholly 
to  the  state  of  territorial  possessions  settled  at  the 
Peace;  to  the  state  of  affairs  between  nation  and 
nation,  not  ...  to  the  affairs  of  any  nation 
within  itself."  And  in  the  same  year,  when  he 
saw  the  visions  of  1815  and  the  European  system 
and  the  Holy  Alliance  crumbling  at  the  Congress 
of  Verona,  he  congratulated  himself  and  Sir  Charles 
Bagot  that  "things  are  getting  back  to  a  whole- 
some state  again.  Every  nation  for  itself,  and 
God  for  us  all." 

This  question  over  which  Canning  and  his  Con- 
tinental allies  fell  out  has  got  to  be  faced  to-day. 
If  the  society  of  nations  is  to  be  constructed  upon 
the  model  of  the  society  of  individual  human 
beings — that  is  to  say,  if  certain  questions  in  which 
national  desires,  beliefs,  and  interests  clash,  are  to 
be  submitted  for  discussion  and  decision  to  assem- 
blies of  national  representatives — then  it  is  abso- 
lutely essential  to  agree  first  upon  what  such 
assemblies  can  and  what  they  cannot  discuss  and 
decide.  At  first  sight,  Canning  may  seem  to  many, 
with  the  sound  British  instinct  of  common  sense, 
to  have  drawn  the  right  distinction.  "The  state 
of  affairs  between  nation  and  nation,"  the  relations 


34  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

of  nations  to  one  another,  are  the  domain  of  an 
international  legislature,  whatever  particular  form 
it  may  take;  "the  affairs  of  any  nation  within 
itself"  are  the  exclusive  concern  of  the  nation 
itself.  It  is  true  that  in  a  large  number  of  cases 
this  common-sense  distinction  would  probably 
solve  the  problem  satisfactorily.  There  is  no 
difficulty  in  seeing  that  the  differences  and  dis- 
putes which  arise  out  of  the  economic  relations 
and  out  of  many  of  the  political  and  administra- 
tive relations  of  States  concern  the  "state  of 
affairs  between  nation  and  nation."  To  have  the 
commercial  relations  of  European  States  in  Asia 
and  Africa  submitted  to  some  kind  of  permanent 
deliberative  conference,  to  have  the  commercial 
and  political  relations  of  European  States  in  such 
countries  as  Persia  and  Morocco  settled  in  open 
debate  rather  than  by  the  secret  weaving  of  in- 
trigue and  the  silent  pressure  of  armaments,  is  not 
only  a  desirable  dream  of  the  future,  but  is  also  a 
scheme  which  practical  men  might  actually  put 
into  operation  to-morrow.  But  as  soon  as  one 
comes  to  questions  of  nationality  the  case  is  en- 
tirely different.  It  is  often  extremely  difficult  to 
decide  oneself  whether  such  questions  are  inter- 
national or  national,  and  therefore — and  this  is 
the  important  point — there  will  often  be  in  prac- 
tice a  fundamental  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
whether  a  particular  question  should  be  decided 
internationally  or  nationally. 

Let  us  take  actual  examples.     Everyone  would 
admit  that  the  position  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  35 

in  the  society  of  European  nations  is  an  inter- 
national question;  in  fact,  as  long  ago  as  1876,  at 
the  Conference  of  Constantinople,  a  rudimentary 
international  legislature,  to  which  the  six  Great 
Powers  sent  representatives,  discussed  and  de- 
cided upon  the  nature  of  the  administrative  system 
to  be  applied  to  those  countries.  If  ever  "some 
international  authority"  is  to  "settle  points  of 
difference  among  nations"  by  means  of  delibera- 
tive or  legislative  conferences,  then  undoubtedly 
the  differences  about  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina 
should  be  submitted  to  such  a  conference.  The 
question  is  one  of  nationality  and  administration. 
There  are  within  a  certain  area  persons  of  various 
nationalities.  Is  that  area  to  be  under  the  admin- 
istrative system  of  that  country  or  of  this  country, 
or  are  its  inhabitants  to  be  left  to  work  out  their 
own  system?  At  first  sight  it  might  seem  that 
the  fact  that  two  or  more  nations  are  differing 
over  what  should  be  done  makes  the  question 
international,  but  a  moment's  consideration  will 
show  that  this  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the 
difficulty. 

The  difficulty  is  this — if  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina 
are  to  be  the  subjects  of  international  legislation, 
then  logically  the  whole  Home  Rule  question  in 
Ireland  and  Ulster  and  the  position  of  India  within 
the  British  Empire  are  international  and  not 
domestic  questions.  The  point  is  that  at  every 
particular  moment  there  is  a  status  quo,  at  every 
particular  moment  the  people  living  in  any  area 
are  under  a  certain  administrative  system.  The 


36  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

differences,  which  lead  to  war  over  nationality  and 
administrative  systems,  arise  because  some  people 
desire  to  change  and  some  desire  to  maintain  the 
status  quo  within  a  given  area.  In  every  case 
there  always  is,  and  always  will  be,  one  party  who 
can  and  will  rest  on  the  status  quo  and  insist  that 
the  whole  dispute  is  one  which  concerns  only  the 
internal  affairs  of  the  nation.  The  Turk  could  in 
the  past  plead  as  logically  that  the  Bosnian  was  a 
domestic  question  to  be  settled  between  him  and 
the  inhabitants  as  the  Englishman  can  now  plead 
that  Home  Rule  must  be  settled  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  It  is  impossible  to  say  exactly  when 
the  Balkans  became,  and  when  Ireland  will  be- 
come, an  international  question.  The  truth  is 
that  we  are  dealing  here  with  the  fundamental 
constitution  of  the  society  of  nations.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  that  constitution  should  be  firmly  estab- 
lished, but  the  surest  way  of  making  wars  inevitable 
is  to  try  to  establish  it  immutably  and  eternally. 
The  position  of  nationalities  as  opposed  to  nations 
within  the  society  may  at  any  moment  make  it 
imperative  to  change  the  constitution.  Any 
change,  or  movement  for  change,  in  the  constitu- 
tion is  extremely  likely  to  lead  to  international 
differences;  but,  because  the  constitution  is  based 
upon  nations  and  not  nationalities,  it  is  always 
possible  under  present  circumstances  to  argue  that 
these  questions  of  nationality  and  administration 
are  not  international. 

I  cannot  pretend  to  offer  a  solution  of  this  prob- 
lem.   All  I  can  do  is  to  try  to  show  how  and  why  it 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  37 

exists,  and  to  suggest  certain  conclusions.  It 
seems  to  me  so  important  that  I  propose  to  re- 
state it.  Any  form  of  international  organization 
in  which  conferences  or  any  other  kind  of  delibera- 
tive and  legislative  organ  are  to  decide  on  questions 
which  at  present  are  very  likely  to  lead  to  war  is 
useless,  unless  there  is  agreement  as  to  what 
questions  are  to  be  so  decided  and  machinery  for 
submitting  them  automatically  for  decision.  To 
say  that  such  an  organ  is  only  to  deal  with  inter- 
national questions  is  to  shirk  the  difficulty.  Owing 
to  our  existing  conception  of  "States,"  "nations," 
and  "nationality,"  there  will  always  be  a  wide 
divergence  of  opinion  whether  a  question  involving 
nationality  is,  or  when  it  becomes,  international. 
Thus,  if  Russia  comes  into  the  international 
organization,  the  position  of  the  Finns  within  that 
Empire  is,  for  the  moment,  we  may  allow,  a 
matter  to  be  decided  between  Finns  and  Russians. 
But  it  is  not  difficult  to  conceive  of  events  happen- 
ing which  would  lead  insensibly  to  a  Finnish  ques- 
tion, and  a  war  between,  say,  Sweden  and  Russia 
over  it.  The  difficulty  is  to  say  at  what  point 
Russia  is  to  admit  that  the  Finnish  question  is  no 
longer  purely  domestic,  but  concerns  Sweden. 
The  essence  of  the  situation  is  that  Sweden,  who 
wishes  to  change  the  status  quo,  will  at  once  affirm, 
and  Russia,  who  wishes  to  maintain  the  status  quo, 
will  deny,  that  the  question  is  international. 

The  simplest  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is,  of 
course,  to  say  that  the  position  of  nationalities' 
within  States  is  always  a  right  subject  for  inter- 


38  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

national  legislation.  But  we  are  discussing  the 
matter  from  a  practical  standpoint,  and  we  have  to 
ask  ourselves  whether  there  is,  this  side  of  the  year 
of  our  Lord  2000,  the  slightest  possibility  of  the 
British  Empire  and  Russia  entering  an  inter- 
national system  in  which  the  future  position  of 
Indians,  Irishmen,  and  Finns  in  the  respective 
Empires  is  to  be  decided  at  some  sort  of  inter- 
national conference.  The  possibility  seems  to  be 
remote,  and  that  undoubtedly  means  that  the 
possibility  of  any  pacific  settlement  of  differences 
involving  nationality  is  also  remote.  It  means  that 
at  the  end  of  the  war  we  shall  again  try  to  establish 
international  society  in  Europe  with  an  immutable 
constitution.  For  a  few  brief  weeks  or  months  the 
position  of  Poles,  Italians,  Serbs,  even  Finns  and 
Irishmen,  under  that  constitution  may  be  a  subject 
of  international  discussion;  but,  once  Europe  has 
been  settled  in  this  way,  there  is  to  be  no  interna- 
tional method  or  machinery  for  revising  the  con- 
stitution. Four  million  Finns  and  Swedes  are  to 
be  permanently  handed  over  to  the  generosity  and 
liberality  of  some  83,0x30,000  Russians,  just  as 
4,000,000  pure-bred  Irishmen  are  to  be  perma- 
nently handed  over  to  the  40,000,000  mixed  popu- 
lation which  inhabits  the  rest  of  the  British  Isles. 
National  questions  will  remain  domestic  until 
and  unless  they  have  become  so  acute  that  war  has 
broken  out  and  is,  therefore,  according  to  the 
popular  philosophy  of  history  and  war,  "inevi- 
table." 

We  shall  have  again  to  return  to  this  and  similar 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  39 

problems,  and  I  therefore,  for  the  present,  will  only 
make  the  following  remarks  upon  it.  In  the  first 
place,  the  difficulty  is  largely  due  to  our  extraor- 
dinarily crude  conceptions  of  "States"  and 
"nations."  Practically  everyone,  from  Foreign 
Secretaries  to  public-house  politicians,  is  obsessed 
by  the  mysterious  sovereignty  of  sovereign  Powers. 
The  ordinary  view  is  that  the  action  of  a  nation  is 
to  be  determined  solely  by  its  own  ideals  and 
desires.  In  a  sense,  therefore,  any  international 
question  is  not  international,  but  domestic,  and  a 
sovereign  Power  always  has  to  consider  only  two 
things — what  it  desires  and  whether  it  is  strong 
enough  to  enforce  its  desire.  But  the  whole  of  an 
international  organization  and  authority  implies  an 
agreement  that  each  nation  is  willing  that  its 
action  will  be,  in  part,  determined  by  what  other 
nations  desire.  Any  kind  of  conference  which  is  to 
decide  things  involves  the  submission  of  one  nation 
to  the  expressed  will  of  other  nations.  Perhaps  the 
main  thing  is  that  we  should  see  that  we  do  not 
cease  to  be  a  nation,  or,  at  any  rate,  a  nation 
with  "national  honor,"  because  we  make  that 
submission. 

Secondly,  one  may  doubt  whether  a  certain 
degree  of  unanimity  as  to  the  internal  organiza- 
tion of  States  is  not  an  absolutely  necessary  ante- 
cedent to  any  highly  developed  international  or- 
ganization. The  Russian  view,  for  instance,  of 
the  rights  of  nationalities  within  the  State  is  so 
different  from  the  British  that  neither  of  us  could 
with  equanimity  allow  the  other  a  voice  in  the 


40  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

decision  of  a  national  question  nearly  affecting 
our  own  State.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the 
first  work  of  an  international  conference  should  be 
to  lay  down  some  general  principle  of  action  in 
this  matter,  and  such  apparently  is  the  idea 
underlying  many  of  the  published  and  unpublished 
proposals  which  one  hears  at  the  present  time  for 
settling  the  terms  of  peace.  Thus  the  Union  of 
Democratic  Control  urges  the  adoption  of  the 
principle  that  "no  province  shall  be  transferred 
from  one  Government  to  another  without  the 
consent  by  plebiscite,  or  otherwise,  of  the  popula- 
tion of  such  province."  The  adoption  of  this 
principle  as  part  of  the  international  constitution 
would  indisputably  be  a  great  step  forward,  but 
one  may  point  out  that  really  to  ensure  a  per- 
manent peace  it  would  be  at  least  necessary  to  add: 
"Nor  shall  any  province  be  compelled  to  remain 
under  any  Government  against  the  consent  of  the 
population  of  such  province."  Whether  the 
Russian  Government  or  Unionist  and  Home  Rule 
politicians  of  this  country  would  be  prepared  to 
adopt  such  a  principle  is  a  matter  of  personal 
opinion,  but  if  adopted  it  would  undoubtedly 
revolutionize  the  current  conceptions  of  "nations" 
and  "patriotism." 

All  this  may  appear  to  be  a  digression  from  our 
main  purpose,  which  is  to  examine  the  achieve- 
ments of  Congresses  and  Conferences;  but,  in 
fact,  it  isx-not.  One  of  the  first  questions  which 
occupied  statesmen  after  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
and  was  actually  settled  by  a  series  of  conferences, 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  41 

was  concerned  precisely  with  these  problems,  and 
the  method  by  which  it  was  solved  is  extremely 
illuminating.  In  1815  the  position  of  the  Greek 
nation  in  the  Turkish  Empire  and  international 
society  was,  according  to  the  accepted  view  of 
international  law  and  history,  a  domestic  question 
to  be  settled  between  Greek  and  Turk.  But  the 
real  result  of  the  congresses  was  that  a  vague 
feeling  persisted  that  the  affairs  of  any  nation 
which  threatened  the  peace  of  Europe  were  the 
concern  of  all  other  nations.  States  were  still 
regarded  in  theory  and  profession  as  isolated 
units  whose  actions  within  certain  physical 
boundaries  could  not  be  the  subject  even  of  notice 
by  any  man  or  thing  outside  them;  but  in  practice 
it  began  to  be  admitted  that  the  nations  of  Europe 
formed  a  real  society,  the  constitution  of  which 
might  be  established  and  altered  by  methods  other 
than  warfare. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Greek  revolt  of  1821 
involved  a  serious  danger  to  the  peace  of  Europe. 
There  sprang  into  existence  at  this  time  the  bogey 
of  international  politics,  which  persisted  all  through 
the  nineteenth  century — the  isolated  interference 
of  Russia  with  Turkey.  And  yet  by  1824  Russia 
was  already  proposing  collective  intervention  and  a 
Conference  of  Powers.  Turkey  logically  protested 
that  the  question  was  a  domestic  one  to  be  settled 
between  herself  and  the  Greeks,  and  even  Greece 
refused  to  accept  the  decision  of  a  conference. 
Now,  there  were  really  two  ways  of  settling  the 
question.  First,  each  Power,  including  Turkey, 


42  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

might  be  treated  as  an  isolated  sovereign  Power. 
In  that  case  Turkey  had  to  settle  with  the  Greeks 
by  herself,  though,  of  course,  any  other  Power 
might  make  any  demand  of  her  which  she  thought 
she  could  enforce  by  arms.  In  the  second  case,  the 
European  Powers  might  say  to  Turkey:  "You 
form  part  of  the  society  of  nations.  Your  internal 
affairs  are  already  endangering  peace.  We  and 
you  will  now  send  representatives  to  a  conference, 
and  that  conference  will  decide  for  us  and  for  you 
how  these  affairs  are  to  be  settled." 

In  fact,  the  Powers  adopted  neither  method,  but 
tried  to  combine  them.  Two  States — Austria 
and  Prussia — stood  outside,  and  refused  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  matter.  Russia,  France, 
and  Great  Britain,  by  the  treaty  of  1827,  under 
cover  of  the  specious  term  "mediation,"  professed 
to  deal  with  Turkey  as  a  sovereign  Power. 
Actually  they  formed  themselves  into  a  kind  of 
legislative  committee,  and  at  a  series  of  conferences, 
held  off  and  on  for  ten  years,  settled  the  affairs 
of  Greeks  and  Turks,  and  compelled  both  parties 
to  accept  that  settlement.  They  transformed  a 
Turkish  province  into  an  independent  kingdom, 
they  selected  and  gave  it  a  king,  and  defined  its 
boundaries.  Incidentally,  they  invented  a  new  term 
in  international  law,  and  pacifically  destroyed  the 
Turkish  fleet  at  Navarino.  These  two  facts  alone 
prove,  however,  that  the  international  conferences 
which  settled  the  question  of  Greek  independence 
were  the  central  point  of  a  new,  if  rudimentary, 
international  system.  When  the  three  Powers 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  43 

blockaded  the  Greek  coast  in  1827,  in  order  to  en- 
force these  decisions  of  their  conferences,  for  the 
first  time  in  history  we  hear  of  a  pacific  blockade, 
and  even  when  they  destroyed  her  fleet  they  denied 
that  they  were  at  war  with  Turkey.  The  fact  is 
that,  though  they  never  said  so,  they  unconsciously 
regarded  their  conferences  as  a  kind  of  committee 
upon  which  had  devolved  the  legislative  power  of  a 
larger  European  organ.  A  blockade  and  a  naval 
action  between  isolated  sovereign  Powers  involves 
war,  whether  some  of  them  call  themselves 
mediators  or  anything  else.  But  if  the  decisions  of 
an  international  conference  are  binding  upon  the 
nations  of  Europe,  then  a  blockade,  or  even  a 
naval  massacre,  to  enforce  those  decisions,  under- 
taken in  the  name  of  Europe,  can  reasonably  be 
called  pacific.* 

It  is  also  noteworthy  that  all  through  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  right  of,  first,  the  three  Powers, 

*  Text  books  on  International  Law  treat  the  action  of  the  three  Powers 
as  an  example  of  collective  intervention.  Such  labelling  of  things  in  tech- 
nical terms  is  useful,  but  it  has  the  disadvantage  of  making  one  think  that 
having  attached  the  label  one  has  explained  everything.  The  important 
point  is,  not  that  the  three  Powers  intervened,  but  why  and  how  they  inter- 
vened. As  regards  pacific  blockade,  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among 
international  lawyers.  The  orthodox  view  now  is  that  such  blockades  are 
not  acts  of  war  if  they  can  be  classified  as  "interventions"  or  "reprisals." 
The  layman,  however,  will  be  inclined  to  agree  with  writers  like  Mr.  Baty 
(vide  International  Law,  Chapter  VI),  and  consider  "pacific  blockades"  of 
this  nature  acts  of  war  in  everything  but  name.  But  it  is  clear  that  the  dis- 
tinction drawn  in  the  text  is  a  real  one.  There  is  a  real  difference  between 
a  nation  enforcing  its  own  will  by  violence  and  one  enforcing  the  will  of  an 
international  authority  by  violence.  It  is  the  difference  between  a  hooligan 
and  a  policeman.  My  point  is  that  the  three  Powers  were  half  conscious 
of  acting  as  a  European  police,  and  were  right  in  protesting  that  they  were 
not  at  war  with  Turkey. 


44  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

and  later  a  larger  group  of  Powers,  was  recognized 
to  "arrange"  the  affairs  of  Greece.  At  every  point 
this  right  was  exercised  through  international 
conferences.  In  1857  a  commission  of  representa- 
tives of  the  three  Powers  met  at  Athens  to  enquire 
into  the  Greek  financial  situation.  In  1862,  when 
King  Otho  was  deposed  and  the  National  Assembly 
offered  the  throne  to  Prince  William  of  Denmark, 
a  conference  again  met  and  confirmed  the  choice. 
In  1863  a  conference  of  the  three  Powers  and 
Prussia  and  Austria  "confirmed"  the  cession  of  the 
Ionian  Islands.  In  1878  the  Congress  of  Berlin 
dealt  with  the  rectification  of  the  Greek-Turkish 
boundary.  When  Greece  and  Turkey  failed  to 
agree  upon  the  new  boundary,  the  Powers  held 
another  conference  at  Berlin  in  1880,  and  decided 
by  a  majority  of  votes — an  almost  unique  mode  of 
procedure  at  an  international  conference — upon 
the  line  of  frontier.  Though  Turkey  objected  and 
Greece  mobilized,  the  Powers  refused  to  allow  war, 
and  in  the  following  year  military  officers  specially 
delegated  by  them  handed  over  the  new  line  mile  by 
mile  to  the  Greek  nation.*  Finally,  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  in  1885  five  of  the  great  Powers  under- 
took another  pacific  blockade  of  the  Greek  coasts 
in  order  to  prevent  Greece  from  going  to  war  with 
Turkey. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  absurd  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  these  facts,  though  it  would  be 
equally  absurd  to  underestimate  it.  Europe  did 

*  V ide  the  European  Concert  and  the  Eastern  Question,  by  T.  E.  Holland, 
pp.  4-69. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  45 

not  invent  a  new  and  perfect  system  of  inter- 
national government  to  settle  the  Greek  question. 
The  Powers  themselves  were  at  great  pains  to 
prove  by  the  use  of  such  terms  as  "mandate"3 
from  the  Greek  nation  and  "mediation"  that  they 
were  making  no  innovations.  But  when  one  looks 
beneath  the  verbiage  of  protocols  and  treaties,  one 
sees  clearly  that  there  was  the  spirit  of  a  new 
system  of  international  society.  The  relations  of 
Greece  and  Turkey  were  being  continually 
regulated  by  quasi-legislative  international  con- 
ferences. Russia  and  England  were  certainly  at 
no  time  very  well  disposed  to  one  another  or  dis- 
interested parties,  yet  they  were  throughout  able 
by  means  of  these  conferences  to  come  to  a  reason- 
able agreement.  Though  the  Powers  were  not 
able  completely  to  prevent  bloodshed,  they  con- 
trived again  and  again  to  compel  Greece  and 
Turkey  to  accept  international  decisions  without 
resorting  to  violence,  and  they  undoubtedly  settled 
reasonably  and  justly  a  number  of  difficult  ques- 
tions which,  if  they  had  not  intervened,  would 
have  led  to  incessant  massacre  and  righting. 
Finally,  it  must  be  remarked  that,  although  the 
conferences  formed,  in  fact,  a  rudimentary  kind  of 
international  legislative  organ,  they  had  this 
peculiarity — that  usually  the  interested  parties, 
Greece  and  Turkey,  had  no  representative  at  them. 
It  is  perhaps  advisable  to  point  out  that  the 
representatives  of  the  Powers  were  almost  always 


*  Fide  Protocol  of  Conference  of  London,  1863. 


46  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

eager  to  insist  that  they  had  no  kind  of  inter- 
national authority.  The  Powers  were  always 
"mediating"  between  two  sovereign  States;  they 
were  only  making  "suggestions"  which  those 
States  had  full  liberty  to  accept  or  reject.  The 
proceedings  of  the  Conference  of  Paris  of  1869 
are  full  of  interest  from  this  point  of  view.  Turkey 
had  presented  an  ultimatum  to  Greece  regarding 
the  help  afforded  by  her  to  Cretan  insurgents,  etc. 
Greece  refused  to  comply,  and  Turkey  threatened 
the  Greek  coasts.  The  Powers  intervened  under 
the  vceu  'pacifique  in  the  XXIII  Protocol  of  the 
Congress  of  Paris.  At  the  first  meeting  the  Greek 
representative  withdrew  because  he  was  refused 
equality  of  representation  with  the  Turkish  repre- 
sentative. The  representatives  agreed  that  the 
Conference  was  not  a  commission  of  enquiry  into 
the  facts,  because  such  a  manner  of  procedure 
would  be  contrary  to  the  independence  of  the  two 
parties,  for  it  would  imply  a  real  intervention  in 
their  internal  administration.  The  Conference, 
it  was  said,  has  not  to  make  decisions  of  a  nature 
to  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  action  of  the  two 
Powers  to  which  it  offers  its  good  offices;  it  can 
legitimately  only  examine  facts,  say  what  it  thinks 
is  right,  and  present  the  basis  of  a  reconciliation. 
It  is  not  a  "tribunal  charge  de  rendre  un  arret," 
but  "un  Conseil  international  dont  les  apprecia- 
tions ne  sauraient  engager  les  parties  que  par  la 
liberte  meme  qu'elles  leur  laissent  et  1'absence 
complete  de  toute  autre  sanction  que  celle  qu'impli- 
que  necessairement,  dans  1'ordre  moral,  une  telle 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  47 

manifestation  de  1'opinion  publique  et  en  quelque 
sorte  de  la  conscience  Europeenne."  What  the 
Conference  actually  did  was  to  lay  down  in  a 
declaration  the  principles  of  international  law 
which  it  considered  that  Greece  was  bound  to 
observe.  This  declaration  was  forwarded  to  Athens 
with  an  expression  of  the  conviction  of  the  Con- 
ference that  Turkey  would  not  proceed  to  carry 
out  the  measures  threatened  in  the  ultimatum  if 
Greece  notified  the  Conference  that  she  deferred 
to  the  opinion  expressed  by  it.  The  Greek  Govern- 
ment replied  that  it  adhered  to  the  principles  of 
international  jurisprudence  contained  in  the 
declaration,  and  had  decided  to  act  in  accordance 
with  them. 

I  have  dealt  with  the  affairs  of  Greece  and 
Turkey  at  some  length  because  they  show  very 
clearly  the  elements  of  the  whole  problem,  and 
because  they  are  also  the  first  example  of  an  at- 
tempt to  regulate  the  relations  of  States  and  the 
constitution  of  international  society  by  a  series  of 
international  conferences.  The  fact  is  that  for 
the  whole  of  a  particular  area  in  Europe  and  in 
European  politics  a  new  system  and  theory  of 
inter-State  relationship  grew  up  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  That  system  involved  "a  negation  of  the 
right  of  any  one  Power  and  an  assertion  of  the 
right  of  the  Powers  collectively,  to  regulate 
the  solution  of  the  Eastern  question."*  The 
development  of  the  system  was  gradual,  and  only 


*  Holland,  The  European  Concert,  p.  221. 


48  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

occasionally  penetrated  the  consciousness  of  the 
diplomatists  and  statesmen  who  invented  it.  Dip- 
lomatists are  naturally  so  conservative  that,  even  if 
once  a  century  they  are  compelled  to  take  a  step 
forward,  they  spend  a  great  deal  of  time  and  in- 
genuity in  assuring  themselves  and  the  world  that 
they  have  really  been  standing  still.  When  one 
turns  from  the  Greek  to  the  Balkan  question,  one 
can  see  clearly  what  a  big  step  had  been  taken. 

The  events  of  the  years  1876-1878  deserve  de- 
tailed mention.  The  insurrection  in  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina had  been  supported  by  armed  action  on  the 
part  of  Montenegro  and  Servia  against  Turkey. 
In  1876  the  six  Great  Powers  came  forward  as 
"mediators."  It  was  a  curious  form  of  mediation. 
They  held  an  international  conference  at  Constan- 
tinople from  December  nth  to  December  22nd. 
They  discussed  two  questions:  (i)  The  conditions 
to  be  offered  to  Turkey  on  the  one  side  and  Mon- 
tenegro and  Servia  on  the  other;  (2)  the  nature  of 
the  administrative  system  to  be  applied  to  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  and  to  Bulgaria,  and  the  guarantees 
for  securing  execution.  The  Conference  decided 
these  questions,  and  actually  agreed  to  send  into 
the  Balkan  Peninsula  an  international  police  force 
composed  of  from  3, coo  to  6,000  Belgian  soldiers 
as  a  "material  guarantee."  They  then  held  an- 
other conference  from  December  23,  1876,  to 
January  20,  1877,  to  which  Turkey  was  admitted, 
and  at  which  the  proposals  of  the  Powers  were 
communicated  to  her.  Turkey  rejected  the  pro- 
posals. Now,  if  the  Powers  had  been  merely 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  49 

mediators,  there  was  an  end  of  the  whole  matter; 
but  what  the  Powers  really  felt  themselves  to  be 
doing  was  shown  by  the  action  of  Russia.  She 
sent  a  circular  note  to  the  Powers  asking  them 
what  measures  they  proposed  to  take  in  order  to 
enforce  the  decisions  of  Europe;  and,  when  no 
measures  were  taken,  she  went  to  war  with  Tur- 
key. Moreover,  when  after  the  war  she  attempted 
to  make  her  own  terms  with  Turkey  by  the 
Treaty  of  San  Stefano,  the  other  Powers  inter- 
vened and  insisted  upon  a  European  settlement  at 
the  international  Congress  of  Berlin. 

Now,  at  first  sight,  one  might  be  tempted  to  say 
that  these  facts  simply  give  an  example  of  the 
failure  of  an  international  conference  to  regulate 
affairs  without  war;  but  such  a  view  would,  I 
think,  be  superficial.  Clearly  the  Conference  of 
Constantinople  regarded  itself  as  an  international 
legislative  organ,  and  was  prepared  to  go  to  the 
lengths  of  creating  an  international  executive  and 
an  international  armed  force  in  order  to  ensure 
that  its  decisions  should  be  carried  out.  Turkey 
was  being  treated,  not  as  an  isolated  sovereign 
State,  but  as  a  member  of  a  system  of  European 
States,  bound  to  carry  out  the  will  of  those  States 
as  expressed  in  an  international  Conference.  When 
she  refused  to  carry  it  out,  Russia  logically  asked 
what  steps  were  to  be  taken  to  compel  her  to 
abide  by  the  decision  of  Europe.  If  the  Powers 
had  had  the  courage  of  their  convictions,  they 
would  have  said  to  Turkey  what  was,  in  fact,  the 
truth:  "We  are  treating  you,  not  as  an  'isolated' 


50  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

State,  nor  yet  as  a  dependent  State,  but  as  one  of 
a  group  of  European  States.  The  condition  of 
your  affairs  is  such  that  you  are  endangering  the 
peace  of  Europe.  We — that  is,  Europe — have 
decided  that  you  must  take  these  steps  to  put 
your  house  in  order,  and  we  are  now  going  to  use 
every  means  in  our  power  to  see  that  you  do  so." 
If  the  Powers  had  said  this  and  acted  upon  it,  there 
cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  that  there  would 
have  been  no  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey, 
and  the  Conference  of  1876  would  have  achieved 
pacifically  exactly  what  the  Congress  of  1878 
achieved  after  warfare.  The  point  is  that,  in  so 
far  as  Europe  treated  the  Conferences  as  inter- 
national legislative  organs,  they  succeeded;  in  so 
far  as  it  treated  them  as  Councils  of  Conciliation 
and  Mediation,  they  failed.  In  everything  they 
proposed  to  do,  and  in  their  negotiations  with  one 
another,  the  Powers  acted  not  as  mediators,  but 
legislators;  it  was  only  at  the  final  point  when 
they  had  to  consider  how  they  proposed  to  do 
what  they  proposed  to  do,  that  they  turned  round 
and  said:  "Oh,  but  we  are  only  mediators!" 

If  one  looks  at  the  events  of  1876  to  1878,  not 
as  isolated  facts,  but  as  a  chain  of  complicated 
relations,  one  is  forced  to  recognize  the  efficacy  of 
international  conferences  when  treated  as  legis- 
lating organs.  In  a  sense,  one  may  rightly  re- 
gard Russia  merely  as  applying  force  in  the  war 
of  1877  to  compel  Turkey  to  carry  out  the  de- 
cisions of  Europe,  because  if  one  looks  at  the 
results  that  is  really  what  she  did.  And  it  em- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  51 

phasizes  the  point,  which  I  wish  to  make,  that 
Russia  herself,  as  is  shown  by  the  Treaty  of  San 
Stefano,  probably  did  not  intend  to  do  so.  She 
was  playing  for  her  own  hand,  but  the  inter- 
national system  was  too  strong  for  her,  and  at 
Berlin  she  was  compelled  to  tear  up  the  Treaty  of 
San  Stefano  and  herself  bow  to  the  decisions  of 
Europe.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
real  danger  of  the  Eastern  question  has  never  been 
that  some  Power  will  go  to  war  with  Turkey,  but 
that  diplomatic  or  armed  interference  by  some 
Power  with  one  of  the  diseased  or  atrophied  ex- 
tremities of  the  Turkish  Empire  will  set  the  rest 
of  Europe  fighting  one  another.  That  danger  ex- 
isted in  1876-1878  no  less  than  it  did  in  1914;  it 
was  avoided  solely  by  the  acceptance  by  the  great 
Powers  of  a  system  of  international  conferences, 
involving  "a  negation  of  the  right  of  any  one 
Power,  and  an  assertion  of  the  right  of  the  Powers 
collectively,  to  regulate  the  solution  of  the  Eastern 
question." 

Both  examples  of  this  system  which  I  have 
dealt  with  concerned  the  Turkish  Empire.  But 
the  system  of  conferences  and  the  principle  under- 
lying it  have  been  extended  to  other  parts  of  the 
field  of  international  relationship.  I  propose  briefly 
to  refer  here  to  only  two  cases  in  order  to  show 
that  in  these  two  dangerous  and  important  cases 
this  same  principle  was  insisted  upon,  the  prin- 
ciple involving  a  negation  of  the  right  of  any  one 
Power,  and  an  assertion  of  the  right  of  the  Powers 
collectively,  to  settle  an  international  question. 


52  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  first  is  that  of  Luxemburg  in  1867.  A  grave 
international  situation  arose  from  the  proposal  to 
sell  Luxemburg  to  France,  for  the  Duchy  is  obvi- 
ously one  of  those  small  territorial  bones  of  con- 
tention lying  between  two  great  Powers.  France 
and  Holland,  as  two  sovereign  States,  had  under 
the  ordinary  view  of  the  international  system  and 
international  law  every  right  to  settle  the  question 
of  the  sale  of  Luxemburg  between  them.  The 
result  of  such  a  settlement  would  almost  cer- 
tainly have  been  war  between  Prussia  and  France. 
The  Powers  intervened  and  asserted  their  right  to 
settle  the  question  collectively.  This  right  was 
asserted  by  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the 
international  conference  of  London,  to  which 
Austria,  Belgium,  France,  Great  Britain,  Italy, 
the  Netherlands,  Prussia,  and  Russia  sent  repre- 
sentatives, and  at  which  the  neutrality  of  Luxem- 
burg was  declared  and  received  the  "collective 
guarantee"  of  the  Powers. 

The  second  case  is  still  more  interesting,  because 
the  principle  was  definitely  enunciated,  and  the 
facts  themselves  are  of  very  recent  date.  I  am  in 
no  way  concerned  here  with  the  rights  and  wrongs 
of  the  Morocco  question  as  between  France  and 
Germany.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  use  a  good  prin- 
ciple for  bad  ends  as  to  use  a  bad  principle  for 
good  ends.  We  are  dealing  here,  not  with  the 
ends  of  either  Germany  or  France,  or  with  the 
ultimate  objects  of  their  diplomatic  policy  and 
intrigues,  but  simply  with  the  principles  involved 
in  the  history  of  this  international  problem. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  53 

Now,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  principle  insisted 
upon  by  Germany  in  the  events  which  led  up  to 
the  Conference  of  Algeciras  was  that  the  regulation 
of  the  question  of  Morocco  belonged,  not  to  any 
one  Power,  but  to  the  Powers  collectively.  The 
danger  of  the  Morocco  question  for  the  peace  of 
Europe  was  that  France  and  Germany  would  act 
as  isolated  sovereign  Powers  towards  Morocco. 
The  essence  of  the  French  case  was  that  France 
could,  and  would,  so  act;  the  essence  of  the  Ger- 
man case  was  that  the  Powers  should  act  col- 
lectively. That  was  why  Germany  in  1905  was 
demanding,  and  France  resisting,  an  international 
conference.  France  gave  way,  and  the  principle 
of  international  regulation  was  first  recognized  by 
the  calling  of  the  Conference,  and,  secondly,  by 
its  decisions  embodied  in  the  Final  Act. 

I  have  now  dealt  with  what  has  actually  been 
effected  by  international  conferences  in  four  im- 
portant cases.  There  have  been  other  conferences 
to  settle  other  cases,  but  enough  has  been  said  to 
show  their  efficacy,  and  I  now  propose  to  pass  on 
to  the  more  detailed  criticism  of  their  machinery. 
It  is,  however,  worth  while  to  point  out  first,  that 
there  is  only  one  instance  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury of  a  conference  called  in  order  to  settle  a 
question  which  threatened  to  endanger  peace  fail- 
ing to  prevent  war.  That  instance  is  the  con- 
ference or  conferences  preceding  the  Russo-Turkish 
War,  and,  as  I  have  shown,  in  that  case  the  failure 
was  more  apparent  than  real. 

I  have  throughout  treated  conferences  as  nidi- 


54  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

mentary  International  Legislatures,  and  I  have 
done  so  because  I  conceive  a  legislature  as  an 
organ  in  which  representatives  of  various  interests 
attempt  by  discussion  to  arrive  at  decisions  which 
are  in  some  way  and  degree  binding  upon  the  per- 
sons or  communities  represented.  International 
conferences  have  been  only  rudimentary  legisla- 
tures, because  they  have  never  completely,  though 
they  have  partially  and  practically,  fulfilled  these 
conditions.  The  main  question  for  us  is  whether 
it  is  practicable  and  desirable  to  develop  these 
conferences  until  they  completely  fulfill  the  con- 
ditions of  a  legislature.  It  is  in  order  to  help  us 
in  deciding  this  question  that  I  propose  to  ex- 
amine more  closely  into  the  actual  machinery  of 
previous  conferences. 

The  first  point  to  be  noticed  is  at  first  sight  a 
minor  one,  but  is  really  of  some  importance. 
When  a  conference  has  met  several  times  and  pub- 
lished its  protocols  and  its  Final  Act,  and  we  read 
that  it  has  settled  an  international  question,  we 
are  inclined  to  imagine  that  the  question  has  been 
settled  by  discussion  round  a  table  at  the  con- 
ference. Now,  sometimes  our  imagination  has 
some  resemblance  to  the  facts.  Thus  at  the  Con- 
ference of  Constantinople  the  details  of  the  admin- 
istrative system  to  be  applied  to  Bosnia,  Herze- 
govina, and  Bulgaria  were  discussed  at  length; 
there  was  real  difference  of  opinion,  and  the 
question  was  settled  by  discussion  and  suggestion. 
But  very  often  the  question  or  dispute  is  not  set- 
tled at  the  conference  at  all;  the  settlement  has 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 55 

taken  place  by  negotiation  before  the  conference 
meets.  Thus  the  Conference  of  London  of  1867 
did  not  settle  the  Luxemburg  question  by  dis- 
cussion. The  settlement  had  taken  place  before 
the  Conference  met,  by  the  Powers  accepting  as  a 
basis  of  negotiation  the  neutrality  of  Luxemburg 
under  a  collective  guarantee.  The  Conference 
really  only  drew  up  the  treaty  to  give  effect  to  that 
settlement.* 

Now,  there  has  always  been  a  strong  tendency 
among  diplomatists  to  narrow  the  functions  of 
conferences  merely  to  the  arrangement  of  the  de- 
tails of  settlements  already  arrived  at  by  negotia- 
tion. But  it  is  important  to  remark  that  any 
narrowing  in  this  direction  prevents  their  develop- 
ment into  legislative  organs  capable  of  settling 
disputes  in  which  diplomacy  has  failed.  It  is  the 
free  discussion  of  representatives  face  to  face  that 
in  a  large  number  of  cases  would  by  itself  ensure 
agreement.  The  first  thing,  and  the  minimum,  to 
aim  at  is  that  questions  involving  real  disagree- 
ment, which  diplomacy  has  not  settled  or  which 
cannot  be  referred  to  a  judicial  tribunal,  shall  be 
of  right  and  necessity  referred  to  the  free  dis- 
cussion of  representatives  in  conference.  It  fol- 
lows from  this  that  it  is  absolutely  essential  that 
the  question  of  whether  or  not  a  particular  ques- 


*  Perhaps  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  this  does  not  invalidate 
what  was  said  above  regarding  the  Conference.  The  Powers  did  settle  the 
question  by  accepting  the  principle  that  the  regulation  of  the  Luxemburg 
affair  could  only  be  undertaken  by  the  Powers  collectively.  The  Inter- 
national Conference  was  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  such  acceptance. 


56  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

tion  is  to  be  referred  to  a  conference  must  never 
be  allowed  to  be  the  subject  of  negotiation, 
otherwise  the  free  discussion  by  representatives 
becomes  itself  only  a  pawn  in  the  diplomatic  game, 
and  the  conference  is  either  used  as  a  threat  with 
which  to  extort  a  concession,  or  as  a  committee  of 
diplomatic  gentlemen  called  together  to  reduce  an 
agreement  to  writing  and  ambiguity. 

The  second  point  is  the  one  which  goes  to  the 
root  of  the  question  of  whether  it  is  possible  to  set  up 
an  international  authority  with  a  real  international 
legislature.  The  fundamental  difference  between 
a  legislating  and  an  advisory,  conciliating,  mediat- 
ing or  reporting  body  is  that  the  former  can  come 
to  a  decision  binding  on  its  members,  and  the  latter 
cannot.  And  the  difference  practically  resolves 
itself  into  the  question  of  whether  there  is  voting 
and  whether  a  minority  is  bound  by  the  vote  of 
the  majority.  Now,  prior  to  the  Hague  Confer- 
ences, there  was  practically  never  any  voting  at 
these  international  assemblies.  The  conference 
had  to  be  unanimous  or  nothing.  It  was  held,  and 
is  still  held,  that  for  a  sovereign  State  to  agree  to 
be  bound  on  any  question  by  the  decision  of  an 
international  assembly  would  be  to  abandon  its 
sovereignty.  "Le  premier  principe  de  toute  Con- 
ference," said  the  President  of  the  second  Hague 
Conference,  "est  celui  de  1'unanimite:  ce  n'est  point 
une  vaine  forme,  mais  la  base  de  toute  entente 
politique."  That  is  why  it  is  the  rarest  thing  in 
the  world  to  find  any  provision  for  arriving  at  a 
decision  by  voting,  or  for  ascertaining  the  opinion 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  57 

of  a  majority  in  any  diplomatic  arrangements  or 
proceedings.*  And  the  result  is,  of  course,  an  ex- 
traordinary difficulty  of  arriving  at  any  decision 
at  all. 

It  is  advisable  once  more  to  distinguish  the 
function  of  a  conference  that  is  making  general 
rules  or  laws  from  that  of  one  that  is  attempting 
to  settle  some  particular  question  within  the  so- 
ciety of  nations.  First,  as  to  the  general  rules  or 
laws:  The  experience  of  the  Hague  Conferences  is 
most  instructive.  Here  we  have  two  conscious 
attempts  at  full-blown  international  legislation. 
In  1899  the  representatives  of  twenty-six,  and  in 
1907  the  representatives  of  forty-four,  States  met 
together  and  tried  to  make  international  law. 
The  fundamental  question  as  to  how  far  the  Con- 
ference could  make  laws  binding  upon  the  States 
represented  was  never  faced,  and  the  result  was 
disastrous  to  the  procedure  and  to  the  utility  of 
the  Conference.  Each  State  was  given  one  vote, 
but  for  any  use  that  it  was  to  them  they  might 
just  as  well  have  been  given  five  hundred  or  none. 
In  practice,  unanimity  was  required  before  any- 
thing of  importance  was  enunciated  as  the  de- 


*  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  where  it  is  absolutely  imperative  to  arrive 
at  a  decision,  diplomatists  have  in  rare  cases  been  forced  to  adopt  a  system 
of  voting — e.  g.,  where  an  agreement  has  been  arrived  at  which  requires 
further  details  to  be  agreed  to  in  order  to  give  effect  to  it.  The  question 
of  the  Turkish  Greek  boundary  has  been  noted  above.  Another  instance 
is  the  Act  of  the  Algeciras  Conference,  Article  76  of  which  provides  that 
"in  all  cases  dealt  with  by  the  present  Declaration  in  which  the  intervention 
of  the  Diplomatic  Body  is  required,  decisions  shall  be  taken  by  a  majority 
of  votes,  except  in  respect  of  Articles  64,  70  and  75." 
6 


58  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

cision  of  the  Conference.*  The  actual  legislation 
appeared  as  Conventions,  Declarations,  etc.,  an- 
nexed to  the  Final  Act.  The  Final  Act  merely 
presented  these  Conventions,  etc.,  for  acceptance 
or  non-acceptance  by  the  Plenipotentiaries;  and, 
even  if  signed  by  the  Plenipotentiaries  a  Conven- 
vention  was  not  binding  upon  a  State  unless  it  was 
subsequently  ratified. 

The  result  showed  that  international  legislation 
is  impossible  if  every  law  and  every  detail  of  each 
law  has  to  be  unanimously  accepted  by  the  thirty 
or  forty  States  represented  in  the  Legislature.  To 
expect  such  unanimity  is  ridiculous,  and  the  Con- 
ference of  1907  spent  four  months  in  a  hopeless 
attempt  to  attain  it.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
international  legislation  by  conferences  will  re- 
main sterile  unless  sovereign  States  can  agree  that 
to  some  extent  the  will  of  a  majority  is  binding 
upon  a  minority.  That  this  is  not  a  theoretical 
or  Utopian  question  is  shown  by  the  official  report 
of  Great  Britain's  representative,  Sir  Edward  Fry, 
at  the  Second  Conference.  "The  machinery,"  he 
wrote,  "proved  in  a  high  degree  dilatory  and  con- 
fusing," and  one  of  the  few  questions  which  he 
specifies  as  demanding  solution  "before  another 
meeting  of  the  Conference  can  prove  satisfactory" 


*The  Conference  formed  itself  into  committees  to  consider  the  various 
subjects — e.  g.,  the  Laws  and  Customs  of  War  on  Land,  the  Pacific  Settle- 
ment of  International  Disputes,  etc.  The  committees  prepared  and  recom- 
mended the  Conventions  to  the  Conference.  The  committees  acted  on  the 
principle  that  ''unanimity  was  requisite  before  a  Convention  could  be 
recommended  for  acceptance." 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 59 

is  "the  rights  of  a  majority  over  a  minority  in  the 
absence  of  unanimity."  * 

The  importance  of  this  question  cannot  be  exag- 
gerated. The  chief  defects  of  international  law 
are  its  uncertainty,  intangibility,  and  vagueness, 
and  it  is  the  existence  of  these  defects  which  stands 
in  the  way  of  the  settlement  of  international  dis- 
putes by  the  decisions  of  judicial  tribunals.  If 
a  tribunal  is  to  apply  the  law  to  particular  cases 
there  must  be  a  law  to  apply,  and,  it  seems  to 
follow,  a  body  capable  of  laying  down  what  the 
law  shall  be.  But  no  body  modelled  on  the  form  of 
the  Hague  Conferences  will  ever  be  capable  of 
laying  down  what  international  laws  shall  be. 

This  question,  like  most  of  those  raised  in  this 
chapter,  will  have  to  be  considered  again  and  more 
fully  when  I  come  to  deal  with  the  co-ordination  of 
international  machinery  and  the  possible  forms  of 
an  international  authority.  But  the  same  problem 
occurs  in  a  slightly  different  form  with  regard  to 
conferences  called  to  deal  with  some  particular 
difference  or  dispute  which  has  arisen  between 
nations.  It  is  possible  to  conceive  of  such  a  Con- 
ference acting  in  three  different  ways.  It  might 
first  act  as  a  true  legislature — that  is  to  say,  it 
would  give  a  decision  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done, 
and  every  State  would  send  its  representative  on 
the  understanding  that  the  matter  would  be 
regulated  by  the  collective  decision.  As  I  have 
shown  above,  Conferences  have  approximated  in 


'Miscellaneous,  No.  i  (1908),  (Cd.  3857),  p.  20. 


60  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

practice  to  this  form,  though  they  have  never  fully 
attained  it.  The  reason  is  that  States  will  not 
agree  to  send  a  representative  to  any  Conference  at 
which  the  decision  of  the  majority  would  bind  a 
minority,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a  decision 
can  be  ensured  without  the  rights  of  a  majority 
over  a  minority  being  defined  or  admitted. 
Secondly,  a  Conference  may  be  constituted  merely 
as  an  examining  and  reporting  body.  The  Con- 
ference of  Paris  of  1869,  referred  to  above,  which 
intervened  between  Greece  and  Turkey,  was 
professedly  a  body  of  this  sort.  It  endeavored 
to  come  to  no  decision  binding  upon  anyone,  nor 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  did  it  mediate 
between  the  two  Powers.  It  merely  examined  the 
facts  and  gave  a  public  pronouncement  as  to  what 
it  considered  the  disputing  Powers  ought  to  do. 
It  specifically  stated  that  it  considered  that  in 
making  the  pronouncement  it  was  merely  mani- 
festing the  public  opinion  of  Europe  upon  the  dis- 
pute. The  same  difficulty,  though  obviously  to  a 
less  degree,  occurs  with  this  kind  of  Conference. 
If  the  use  of  them  were  extended — for  instance,  if 
every  dispute  between  nations  which  diplomacy 
failed  to  settle,  and  which  was  not  referred  to  a 
judicial  tribunal,  had  at  least  to  be  referred  to  a 
conference  for  examination  and  report — there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  provision  would  have  to  be 
made  for  cases  in  which  there  was  a  difference  of 
opinion  in  the  Conference  itself.  Thirdly,  a  Con- 
ference can  act  merely  as  a  kind  of  Council  of 
Conciliation  between  two  disputing  nations.  This 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  61 

was  the  capacity  in  which  the  Conferences  pro- 
fessed to  act  with  regard  to  the  Turks  and  Greeks. 
They  professed  not  to  decide  what  should  be  done, 
not  merely  to  examine  and  report,  but  rather  to  act 
as  mediators,  to  suggest  methods  of  compromise 
which  might  reconcile  the  interests  of  the  two 
parties.  There  is  no  doubt  that  mediation  of  all 
kinds  has  been,  and  will  be  again,  extremely  useful 
in  preventing  war,  but  it  is  important  to  notice 
that  the  whole  intention  and  therefore  procedure 
of  a  Conference  acting  in  this  way  must  be  differ- 
ent from  one  acting  either  as  a  legislating  or 
examining  and  reporting  body.  The  main  object 
of  a  mediating  Conference  will  be  to  find  some 
compromise  which  will  be  accepted  by,  and  accept- 
able to,  both  parties;  it  is,  in  fact,  an  extended  and 
elaborated  form  of  ordinary  diplomatic  negotia- 
tion. It  need  not  necessarily  come  to  any  decision 
at  all,  but  might  perform  its  task  merely  by  sug- 
gesting different  methods  of  settlement.  In  this 
kind  of  Conference,  therefore,  the  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining unanimity  and  the  question  of  majorities 
and  minorities  need  never  arise. 

I  now  propose  to  leave  the  question  of  Confer- 
ences and  Legislatures  in  order  to  examine  that  of 
arbitration  and  judicial  tribunals,  but  before  doing 
so  it  will  be  useful  to  summarize  the  conclusions 
which  I  have  ventured  to  draw  from  the  facts  dis- 
cussed in  this  chapter: 

(i)  A  new  system  of  international  relationship 
began  to  appear  in  the  last  century.  The  pivot  of 
the  system  was  the  making  of  international  laws 


62 


and  the  regulation  of  certain  international  affairs 
at  international  Conferences  of  national  represen- 
tatives. The  important  part  of  the  system  was  the 
expressed  or  unexpressed  acceptance  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  such  affairs  could  only  be  settled  by  the 
collective  decision  of  the  Powers. 

(2)  The  functions  of  these  international  Con- 
ferences may  be  of  three  different  kinds,  which,  in 
practice,  have  not  been  clearly  recognized  and 
distinguished.  Their  function  may  be: 

(a)  To  come  to  a   decision  binding  upon  the 
States  represented — i.  e.,  to  legislate;  or 

(b)  To  examine  facts  and  express  an  opinion  or 
issue  a  report;  or 

(c)  To  act  as  a  Council  of  Conciliation  or  Media- 
tion between  two  or  more  disputing  States. 

3.  The  efficacy  of  Conferences  in  preventing  war 
and   in   settling  international  questions  has  been 
remarkable.     It  has,  however,  been  limited  by  the 
fact  that  the  submission  of  any  question  to  a  Con- 
ference has  always  been  a  subject  for  negotiation, 
and    therefore   only    a    move    in    the    diplomatic 
game.    The  first  step  towards  the  peaceful  regula- 
tion of  international  affairs  would  be  to  remove  this 
question  of  submission  altogether  from  the  sphere 
of  negotiation  and  diplomacy,  and  to  define  the 
cases  in  which  a  Conference  must  be  called  or  could 
be  demanded. 

4.  Little  progress  in  the  making  of  international 
laws  by  Conferences  can  be  expected  unless  the 
rights    of    an    international    majority    to    bind    a 
minority — if  only  of  an  exceptionally  overwhelming 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  63 

majority,    in    specific    cases — are    admitted    and 
defined. 

5.  The  development  of  Conferences  into  full 
international  legislative  bodies  depends  principally 
upon  the  possiblity  of: 

(a)  Agreement  as  to  what  are  international  ques- 
tions  which   are   to   be   submitted   for   collective 
decision  to  Conferences. 

(b)  Agreement  as  to  the  rights  of  an  international 
majority  to  bind  a  minority. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ARBITRATION   AND    JUDICIAL   TRIBUNALS 

ARBITRATION  has  received  so  much  atten- 
tion and  prominence  in  discussions  as  to 
the  possible  means  of  preventing  war,  that 
anyone  who  tries  to  say  anything  original  on  the 
subject  is  in  danger  of  writing  a  great  deal  too  much 
or  a  great  deal  too  little  about  it.  In  this  chapter 
I  shall  therefore  limit  myself  to  the  discussion  of 
a  definite  question — namely,  a  consideration  of  the 
achievements  and  working  of  actual  arbitration 
and  other  tribunals — with  a  view  to  forming  an 
opinion  as  to  the  possibility  of  settling  inter- 
national differences  and  disputes  by  the  decision  of 
a  tribunal,  and  as  to  the  proper  place  of  arbitration 
or  a  judiciary  "in  some  international  authority." 
The  arbitrationists  and  anti-arbitrationists  in 
their  quarrels  appear  again  and  again  to  neglect  a 
vital  distinction  which  has  more  than  once  been 
pointed  out.  There  are  two  distinct  forms  of 
judicial  tribunals  to  which  the  term  International 
Court  of  Arbitration  can  be,  and  has  been,  applied, 
and  the  whole  purpose  of  each,  and  therefore  their 
efficacy,  are  absolutely  different.  Discussion  of 
arbitration  is  useless  until  this  difference  is  clearly 
grasped  and  unless  it  is  kept  securely  and  per- 
petually before  one's  mind. 

64 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  65 

Every  judicial  tribunal  is  a  court  composed  of 
one  or  more  persons  to  whom  a  difference  or  dis- 
pute is  referred  for  a  decision.  It  is  the  basis  upon 
which  the  judge  or  arbitrator  is  required  to  come 
to  a  decision  that  marks  the  broad  line  of  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  forms  of  tribunal.  In  the 
first  form — and  it  is  the  one  upon  which,  at  least  in 
theory,  the  judiciaries  of  States  are  constituted— 
the  judge  or  arbitrator  has  merely  to  base  his  deci- 
sion upon  law;  he  has  to  find  what  the  facts  are, 
interpret  the  law,  and  declare  the  legal  rights  and 
the  legal  obligations  of  the  parties.  In  the  second 
form,  the  judge  or  arbitrator  is  not  concerned  with 
law  at  all;  he  is  expected  to  examine  the  facts,  and 
then,  as  an  open-minded  and  reasonable  human 
being,  to  decide  what  would  be  a  fair  settlement  of 
the  dispute. 

It  is  clear  that,  if  we  are  going  to  refer  inter- 
national disputes  to  arbitration  or  judicial  tribunals, 
we  must  first  make  up  our  minds  which  form  of 
tribunal  we  want.  Our  whole  conception  of  the 
Society  of  Nations  and  of  international  relation- 
ship will  differ  according  as  we  adopt  the  first  or 
the  second  form.  In  the  first  case  our  aim  and 
hope  will  be  that  the  relations  of  States  will  be 
regulated  by  general  rules  or  laws,  and  that  when 
disputes  arise  a  judicial  tribunal  will  decide  them 
strictly  according  to  the  general  rules  or  laws. 
But  in  the  second  case  our  idea  can  be  best  ex- 
pressed thus:  "Here  we  have  a  number  of  dis- 
putes arising  between  nations  which  negotiation 
cannot  settle.  Certain  persons  must  be  selected  by 


66  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

States  as  likely  to  be  reasonable  and  open-minded, 
and  such  disputes  will  be  referred  to  their  decision, 
which  will  represent  a  fair  and  reasonable  settle- 
ment or  compromise." 

Clearly  to  keep  this  distinction  before  one's  mind 
is  of  immense  practical  importance,  particularly 
in  discussing  the  question  of  universal  obligatory 
arbitration  as  a  substitute  for  war.  For  the  many 
people  who  believe  that  war  might  be  prevented  by 
an  agreement  to  refer  to  arbitration  all  disputes 
which  cannot  be  settled  by  negotiation  must  face 
the  fact  that  in  a  large  number  of  cases  it  is  the 
second  kind  of  tribunal  to  which  they  would  have 
to  be  referred.  International  Law  is  so  fragmentary 
and  incomplete  that  it  does  not  touch  at  all  a 
number  of  very  important  international  relation- 
ships, and  a  dispute  arising  from  such  relationships 
could  not  at  present  be  decided  according  to  law. 
Take  the  dispute  between  Russia  and  Austria  at  the 
beginning  of  this  war,  or  between  Spain  and  the 
United  States  at  the  beginning  of  the  Spanish- 
American  war.  No  human  being  could  possibly 
decide  either  case  by  determining  the  legal  rights 
and  obligations  of  the  parties,  because  the  rights 
and  obligations  actually  defined  by  International 
Law  were  so  few  and  so  unimportant. 

The  first  question,  then,  which  one  has  to  put 
to  oneself  is  how  far  it  is  reasonable  and  practicable 
to  expect  nations  to  accept  the  decisions  of  this 
second  kind  of  tribunal  in  disputes  in  which  nego- 
tiation has  failed.  And  it  is  a  very  remarkable 
fact  that  nations  very  rarely  have  accepted  them. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  67 

The  argument  from  the  past  is  all  against  this 
kind  of  arbitration.  If  one  examines  in  detail  the 
numerous  collected  cases  in  which  nations  have 
referred  disputes  to  judicial  tribunals,  one  finds  that 
in  nearly  every  case  the  tribunal  had  to  decide 
either  a  question  of  fact,  or  a  question  of  law,  or 
both.  So  much  so  is  this  the  case  that  frequently, 
when  no  international  law  has  existed  on  the  sub- 
ject in  dispute,  it  was  only  after  negotiation  had 
settled  what  the  law  should  be  that  the  dispute 
could  be  referred  to  arbitration.  This  is  true  of  the 
most  famous  of  all  arbitrations — the  Alabama  case. 
This  case  is  usually  cited  as  a  triumph  for  the 
principle  of  arbitration,  because  here  arbitration 
settled  a  dispute  which  kept  two  great  nations  for 
many  months  trembling  on  the  edge  of  war;  and, 
in  a  sense,  it  was  a  triumph,  but  only  in  the 
sense  that  it  proved  the  efficacy  of  arbitration  in 
disputes  in  which  the  question  had  been  reduced 
to  one  of  legal  rights  and  obligations.  The  real 
difference  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  was  as  to  what  the  legal  duties  of  a  neutral 
Government  in  time  of  war  ought  to  be.  It  was  a 
case  in  which  there  was  no  international  law  on 
the  subject,  and  if  this  real  difference  had  been 
referred  to  a  judicial  tribunal  we  should  have  a 
notable  example  of  success  for  the  second  form  of 
arbitration.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  question 
was  never  referred  to  arbitration,  and  it  was  only 
after  it  had  been  settled  that  arbitration  was  con- 
sidered possible.  The  Treaty  of  Washington,  which 
constituted  the  Tribunal  of  Arbitration,  laid  down 


68  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

in  Article  6  three  rules  by  which  the  arbitrators 
were  to  govern  their  decision.  These  three  rules 
define  the  obligations  of  a  neutral  Government,  the 
very  subject  of  the  dispute  between  the  two 
countries,  so  that,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  the 
Treaty  of  Washington  "practically  reduced  the 
arbitral  tribunal  of  Geneva  to  a  board  for  the  assess- 
ment of  damages." 

The  same  conclusion  is  even  more  forcibly  im- 
pressed upon  one  by  a  detailed  examination  of 
arbitrations  in  the  mass.  Sir  Frederick  Pollock  has 
made  a  rough  analysis  of  the  200  arbitrations  (in 
round  numbers)  which  took  place  between  1815 
and  1900,  and  his  classification  is  as  follows: 

Per  Cent. 
Claims  arising  out  of  warlike  operations  and  for  alleged  illegal 

operations  or  denial  of  justice 40 

Questions  of  title  and  boundaries 30 

Pecuniary  claims  of  citizens  in  miscellaneous  civil  matters. ...       20 
Construction  of  treaties  other  than  boundaries 10 

This  bare  classification  would  show  by  itself  the 
narrow  field  in  which  arbitration  has,  in  fact,  been 
resorted  to;  and  it  is  a  field  narrowed,  not  by  those 
exclusions,  honor  and  vital  interest,  upon  which  so 
much  controversy  has  been  lavished,  but  by  a  single 
characteristic.  It  is  essentially  a  legal  field.  These 
international  tribunals  have  been  called  upon  to 
decide  questions  which  are  precisely  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  which  in  States  are  decided  in 
courts  of  law  —  questions  of  fact,  of  pecuniary 
claims  principally  to  compensation  for  loss  or  in- 
jury based  upon  law  or  legal  documents,  of  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  69 

interpretation  of  treaties   and  other  legal   docu- 
ments, of  title  to  property.* 

The  fact,  however,  that  in  the  past  nations  have 
been  willing  to  accept  arbitration  only  in  legal 
questions — by  which  I  mean  cases  in  which  a  legal 
right  or  obligation  could  be  defined,  or  a  fact  demon- 
strated, or  a  legal  document  interpreted — does  not, 
of  course,  prove,  though  it  makes  it  probable,  that 
nations  will  not  accept  it  in  non-legal  cases  in  the 
future.  We  are  still  left  with  the  problem  whether 
general  obligatory  arbitration  is  practicable  and 
reasonable.  I  believe  that  there  is  good  reason  for 
concluding  that  it  is  neither.  It  is  not  altogether 
safe  to  argue  from  the  society  of  individuals  to  the 
society  of  States,  but  in  this  case  a  comparison  is 
useful.  Differences  between  individuals  within 
States  which  used  to  be  settled  by  private  war 
are  now,  it  is  argued,  settled  by  judicial  decisions; 
therefore  the  same  process  can,  and  must  be,  sub- 
stituted for  war  in  international  differences.  But 

*  An  analysis  of  the  later  references  to  the  Hague  Tribunal  will  give 
the  same  results.  Up  to  1913  twelve  cases  had  been  decided;  of  these, 
six  were  pecuniary  claims,  two  turned  solely  upon  the  interpretation  of 
treaties,  in  two  the  Court  had  to  find  on  the  facts  whether  there  had  been 
a  breach  of  rules  of  international  law,  and  in  one  the  question  was  as  to 
boundaries.  The  criticism  is  often  made  that  only  unimportant  cases  are 
referred  to  arbitration,  and  that  nations  will  never  consent  to  it  in  cases 
involving  honor  and  vital  interests.  The  statement  is  incorrect,  and  based 
upon  misapprehension.  The  Alabama  case,  the  Venezuelan  Boundary 
question,  the  Alaskan  Fur  Seal  difficulty,  the  Alaskan  Boundary  question 
all  involved  either  national  honor  or  vital  interests,  as  Sir  Thomas  Barclay 
has  pointed  out.  It  is  not  that  nations  will  not  refer  important  questions 
to  arbitration,  but  that  they  will  not  so  refer  questions  which  cannot  be 
put  in  a  legal  form.  They  are  willing  to  submit  disputes  to  a  judge  who 
only  has  to  pronounce  on  facts  and  interpret  the  law,  but  not  to  an  arbi- 
trator who  has  to  make  the  law  as  well  as  interpret  it. 


70  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

a  moment's  reflection  shows  that  the  premise  in 
this  argument  is  untrue.  It  is  only  a  strictly 
limited  and  clearly  defined  number  of  differences 
between  individuals  within  States  that  are  settled 
by  judicial  decisions — those,  namely,  to  which  the 
existing  rules  of  law  can  be  applied.  Differences 
as  to  what  the  law  ought  to  be  are  no  less  danger- 
ous to  peace  than  disputes  as  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  law;  but  no  one  would  suggest  that  in  modern 
States  the  work  of  legislation  could  satisfactorily 
be  entrusted  to  impartial  arbitrators. 

Moreover,  there  are  actually  within  States  cer- 
tain questions  almost  exactly  analogous  to  some 
international  questions  which  have  in  the  past  been 
particularly  liable  to  lead  to  war.  Those  differences 
which  arise  within  States  as  to  the  relations,  political 
and  administrative,  of  groups  of  individuals  to 
one  another  are  of  the  same  type  as  the  inter- 
national differences  arising  from  the  political  and 
administrative  relations  of  the  groups  of  individuals 
which  we  call  nations.  Such  differences  are  never 
within  States  referred  to  judicial  tribunals.  No 
sane  man  would  suggest  that  the  Home  Rule 
question  could  find  a  satisfactory  solution  in  a 
court  of  arbitration.  And  the  reason  is  obvious 
—the  interested  parties  could  not  possibly  feel 
that  it  was  rational  to  expect  that  the  settlement 
would  be  just,  and  therefore  to  accept  it.  Ex- 
perience has  shown  that  one  can  find  persons  suffi- 
ciently unbiased  to  determine  more  often  truly 
than  untruly  whether  a  thing  has  or  has  not  hap- 
pened, and  usually  to  apply  justly  and  correctly 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  71 

an  existing  law  to  admitted  or  ascertained  facts. 
But  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  believe  that  one 
or  more  distinguished  gentlemen  chosen  at  random, 
even  if  they  were  really  open-minded  and  un- 
biased, would  necessarily  arrive  at  a  reasonable  and 
right  decision  on  the  Home  Rule  question.  The 
application  of  arbitration  to  such  questions  could 
only  be  justified  by  the  acceptance  of  chance  as  the 
final  arbiter  in  political  affairs;  and  in  that  case 
it  would  be  more  sensible  to  simplify  the  procedure 
by  spinning  a  coin  or  by  drawing  one  of  the  rival 
solutions  out  of  a  hat. 

It  follows,  that  general  arbitration  treaties  which 
would  bind  nations  to  refer  to  arbitration  all  dis- 
putes in  which  negotiation  has  failed  are  useless  and 
dangerous.  Sooner  or  later  there  will  occur  under 
one  of  these  treaties  a  case  in  which  arbitration  is 
essentially  not  a  reasonable  method  of  deciding  the 
issue,  and  then  either  the  treaty  will  be  broken  or 
the  decision  will  not  be  accepted.*  But  to  say  this  is 
in  no  sense  to  belittle  the  importance  of  arbitration. 
It  will  have  its  place,  possibly  a  supremely  im- 
portant place,  in  the  pacific  regulation  of  interna- 
tional society,  but  it  is  not  a  panacea;  and,  having 
recognized  this  fact,  the  wise  man  will  pass  on  to  the 
consideration  of  a  further  practical  question — the 
possibility  of  defining  those  differences  and  dis- 

*  There  are,  of  course,  in  existence  such  treaties — e.  g .,  the  Convention 
of  1905,  between  Italy  and  Denmark,  and  the  Convention  of  1907,  between 
the  five  Central  American  States,  but  they  have  not  yet  stood  the  test 
of  time.  The  ordinary  treaties,  of  which  so  many  have  been  concluded 
since  the  first  Hague  Conference,  by  excepting  questions  of  honor  and 
vital  interest,  really  make  arbitration  optional  in  all  cases. 


72  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

putes  which  it  would  be  practicable  and  reasonable 
for  nations  to  bind  themselves  always  to  refer  to  a 
judicial  tribunal. 

This  question  has,  of  course,  received  consider- 
able attention,  not  only  theoretically,  but 
practically,  at  the  Hague  Conference,  and  in  suc- 
cessful and  unsuccessful  attempts  to  negotiate 
arbitration  treaties.  But  the  failure  of  the  Com- 
mittee at  the  second  Conference  shows  that  up 
to  the  present  no  solution  has  been  found.  This 
result  can,  I  think,  be  shown  to  be  due  to  the  fact 
that  diplomatists,  into  whose  hands  these  things 
are  surrendered,  have  persistently  approached  the 
question  from  two  wrong  angles.  In  the  first 
place,  they  have  invented  the  legend  that  the  im- 
portance of  certain  disputes  makes  them  unsuitable 
for  judicial  settlement.  The  statement  is  made 
either  that  people  will  not,  or  that  they  cannot, 
accept  arbitration  in  cases  affecting  vital  interests 
or  honor.  The  facts  prove  that  this  statement  is 
quite  untrue.  The  importance  of  the  question 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  willingness  to  accept 
arbitration.  The  past  has  shown  that  nations  can, 
and  will,  accept  judicial  decisions  in  questions 
affecting  honor  and  vital  interests  provided  that: 
(i)  A  rational  and  suitable  judicial  procedure 
exists;  and  (2)  the  question  can  be  put  to  the 
tribunal  in  a  legal  form.  This  is  proved  by  the 
arbitrations  already  referred  to  in  the  footnote  on 
page  69,  and  still  more  so  by  the  Dogger  Bank 
Commission  of  Inquiry.  There  will  never  be  a 
case  in  which  national  honor  is  more  dangerously 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  73 

and  vitally  affected  than  it  was  in  the  Dogger 
Bank  incident.  The  danger  lay  in  the  fact  that 
the  honor  of  the  Russian  Fleet  was  in  question 
when  Lord  Lansdowne  demanded  apology,  com- 
pensation, and  the  punishment  of  offending  officers. 
War,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  "appeared  to  be 
inevitable."  But  it  so  happened  that  five  years 
before  there  had  been  invented  at  the  first  Hague 
Conference  a  Procedure  by  International  Commis- 
sion of  Inquiry  which  enabled  this  Dogger  Bank 
question  to  be  put  to  a  tribunal  in  a  judicial  form. 
The  diplomatists  who  invented  that  Procedure 
were,  of  course,  careful  to  see  that  the  Convention 
recommended  its  adoption  only  "in  the  differences 
of  an  international  nature  involving  neither  honor 
nor  vital  interests"  and  yet  the  very  first  time  it  was 
used  "honor"  was  most  acutely  involved.  The 
Convention  had  laid  it  down  that  Commissions 
were  "to  facilitate  a  solution  of  these  differences 
by  elucidating  the  facts,"  and  the  Dogger  Bank 
Commission  was  directed  "to  make  inquiry  and 
draw  up  a  report  .  .  .  particularly  upon  the 
question  of  where  the  responsibility  lies  and  upon 
the  degree  of  blame."  A  difference  involving 
honor  was  therefore  reduced  to  the  common  legal 
and  judicial  questions  of  fact,  and  of  the  degree  of 
responsibility  and  blame  attaching  to  different 
persons  for  the  results  of  certain  actions.  And  so 
the  inevitable  war  was  avoided.* 


*  A  Commission  of  Inquiry  is  technically  not  arbitration.  As  Mr. 
Higgins  points  out  in  his  book,  "The  Hague  Peace  Conferences,"  the  terms 
of  reference  to  the  Dogger  Bank  Commission  were  wider  than  those  con- 

7 


74  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  truth  is  that  diplomatists  have,  almost 
certainly  with  deliberation,  produced  a  vicious 
circle  by  this  exclusion  of  differences  involving 
honor  and  vital  interests.  Professedly  they  are 
going  to  make  arbitration  obligatory  in  cases  to 
which  it  applies  by  defining  those  cases  to  which 
it  does  not  apply.  But  as  each  country  is  the 
judge  whether  any  particular  case  does  involve 
honor  or  vital  interests,  arbitration  becomes  in 
every  case  optional  and  not  obligatory. 

In  the  second  place,  at  the  last  Hague  Conference 
a  genuine  attempt  was  made  in  another  way  to 
define  those  differences  which  it  would  be  prac- 
ticable and  reasonable  for  nations  always  to  refer 
to  a  judicial  tribunal.  The  attempt  was  unsuccess- 
ful, because,  instead  of  covering  them  by  a  general 
definition,  based  upon  the  real  distinction  pointed 
out  above,  the  diplomatists  tried  to  enumerate 
the  particular  differences  to  which  arbitration  was 
applicable.  It  is  true  that  in  one  case,  the  recovery 
of  contract  debts,  in  a  roundabout  way  they  did 
succeed  in  introducing  the  principle  of  obligatory 

templated  in  Article  14  of  the  Convention  of  1899.  The  Convention 
limited  the  report  of  the  International  Committee  to  "a  statement  of  facts." 
The  Dogger  Bank  Commission  not  only  made  a  statement  of  the  facts  in 
dispute — namely,  that  no  Japanese  torpedo  boats  were  present,  but  deliv- 
ered judgment  as  to  responsibility  and  blame — namely  (i)  that  the  firing 
was  unjustifiable;  (2)  that  the  Commander  of  the  Fleet  was  responsible; 
and  (3)  that  the  facts  were  "not  of  a  nature  to  cast  any  discredit  on  the 
humanity"  of  Russian  officers.  It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Com- 
mission was  composed  of  five  naval  officers  and  two  jurists  (the  latter  being 
assessors  without  votes);  it  was  therefore  an  International  Court-martial  or 
Court  composed  of  experts.  "It  is  doubtful,"  writes  Sir  Frederick  Pollock, 
"whether  a  formal  tribunal  of  jurists  and  diplomatists  could  have  handled 
this  delicate  affair  so  well,  if  at  all." 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  75 

arbitration,  and  this,  it  should  be  noticed,  is  ob- 
viously a  "legal"  case.  But  in  Committee  there 
were  weeks  of  futile  discussion  over  the  subjects 
proposed  by  Great  Britain.  A  large  majority  in  the 
Conference  were  in  favor  of  making  arbitration 
obligatory  in  differences  concerning  the  interpre- 
tation and  application  of  treaties  relative  to 
seven  subjects,  but  even  if  practical  effect  had  been 
given  to  this  willingness,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the  cause  of  peace  would  have  been  materially 
advanced.  One  imagines  that  there  must  have 
been  someone  at  the  Conference  possessed  of  a 
cultivated  sense  of  irony  and  cynicism  to  choose 
as  subjects  for  obligatory  arbitration  the  interests 
of  indigent  sick  persons,  of  the  working  classes,  of 
dead  sailors,  of  writers  and  artists.  We  shall  be  too 
near  the  millennium  to  need  any  but  a  Celestial 
Authority  when  the  Foreign  Offices  of  the  world 
think  sufficiently  about  the  interests  of  such  persons 
for  the  Third  Secretary  of  an  Embassy  even  to 
remember  that  they  exist.  Meanwhile  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  take  steps  to  prevent  our  rulers 
mobilizing  fleets  and  armies  on  their  behalf.  If 
the  interests  had  been  those  of  capitalists  and 
financiers,  syndicates,  and  concessionnaires,  our 
conclusion  might  have  been  different,  but  the 
diplomatists  at  The  Hague  were  silent  as  regards 
such  persons. 

The  fact  is  that  diplomatists  have  attempted 
by  this  method  to  include  for  arbitration  only 
disputes  of  no  importance,  just  as  by  the  former 
they  have  attempted  to  exclude  all  disputes  of 


76  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

importance.  The  one  thing  that  they  have  never 
attempted  is  a  general  definition  of  those  disputes 
which  could  be  referred  to  a  judicial  tribunal  in  a 
legal  form — those  disputes,  in  fact,  which  alone  it  is 
reasonable  for  a  nation  to  bind  itself  to  refer  to  arbi- 
tration. A  casual  reading  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
Hague  Conference  of  1907  might  lead  anyone  to 
conclude  that  this  statement  is  incorrect  or  exag- 
gerated, but  a  careful  study  of  those  tortuous  and 
tedious  labyrinths  will  prove  that  it  is  strictly 
correct.  It  is  true  that  the  diplomatists  and 
jurists  distinguished  questions  juridiques  from 
questions  politiques,  that  they  meant  roughly  by 
questions  juridiques  what  I  have  called  legal 
questions,  and  that  they  frequently  assumed  and 
asserted  the  principle  that  questions  juridiques  were 
suitable  for  obligatory  arbitration.  But  their  whole 
vision  was  distorted  by  their  obsession  regarding 
questions  of  vital  interest  and  honor.  They  never 
seemed  quite  certain  whether  they  should  not 
identify  such  questions  with  their  questions  poli- 
tiques;  but,  obviously,  if  you  do  make  this  identifi- 
cation, you  mean  by  questions  juridiques  not  ques- 
tions which  are  concerned  with  legal  rights  and 
obligations,  but  simply  questions  which  do  not 
affect  vital  interest  and  honor.  The  result  of  this 
fog  of  diplomacy  is  very  clear  in  the  discussion  of 
the  Anglo-American  proposal.  This  proposal 
starts  by  declaring  that  the  contracting  States 
agree  to  submit  to  arbitration  differences  d'ordre 
juridique  which  do  not  affect  vital  interests,  in- 
dependence, or  honor.  It  then  goes  on  to  enu- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  77 

merate  certain  differences,  d'ordre  juridique,  which 
States  will  agree  to  submit  to  arbitration  without 
this  reserve.  Now,  clearly,  if  the  differences  enu- 
merated are  merely  examples  of  legal  questions 
which  could  not  affect  honor  or  vital  interests,  the 
enumeration  adds  nothing  to  the  first  clause. 
Accordingly,  the  Conference  appeared  to  start  by 
trying  to  make  a  list  of  those  legal  questions  which 
should  be  referred  to  arbitration,  even  if  they  did 
affect  honor  or  vital  interests.  And  yet  the 
diplomatists  when  they  sat  down  to  make  the  list 
seemed  only  to  consider  as  possible  of  inclusion 
those  questions  which  could  not  affect  honor  or 
vital  interests.  The  confusion  became  inextri- 
cably confounded,  and  it  is  amusing  to  read,  after 
days  and  days  of  discussion,  that  one  diplomatist  at 
length  remarked  that  any  question  may  affect  the 
honor  and  vital  interests  of  a  nation,  and  another 
pointed  out  that  you  can  never  tell  when  a  question 
juridique  is  going  to  become  a  question  politique. 

One  must  repeat,  that  to  make  arbitration 
obligatory  is  impossible  if  you  try  to  distinguish 
questions  which  do  and  do  not  affect  honor  or  vital 
interest.  The  distinction  is  based  neither  upon 
fact  nor  reason.  Even  a  dead  sailor  or  a  live  artist 
may  affect  a  nation's  honor  or  conceivably  even  its 
vital  interests.  Once  this  is  realized  the  problem 
is  hot  really  a  difficult  one.  The  past  has  shown 
that  nations  will  accept  arbitration  in  questions 
which  are  simply  d'ordre  juridique — that  is  to  say, 
where  differences  can  be  reduced  either  to  questions 
of  fact  or  of  the  rights  and  obligations  of  the 


78  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

parties  under  admitted  or  ascertained  rules  of  law. 
Nations  went  to  war  over  boundary  disputes 
before  the  nineteenth  century,  and  settled  them  by 
arbitration  during  the  nineteenth  century,  not 
because  such  disputes  suddenly  ceased  to  affect 
vital  interests,  but  because  it  was  suddenly  realized 
that  boundary  disputes  can  always  be  reduced 
to  a  mixed  question  of  fact  and  law. 

The  only  way  of  approaching  this  problem  is  to 
keep  before  one's  mind  the  analogy  of  judicial 
tribunals  in  States  and  the  analysis  of  those 
international  differences  which  have  been  referred 
to  arbitration.  Anyone  who  does  this  will,  I 
believe,  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  possible 
to  define  those  disputes  which  could  be  put  to  a 
judicial  tribunal  in  a  legal  form,  and  that  they 
actually  fall  under  the  following  general  heads: 

1 .  Questions  of  fact. 

This  is  a  most  important  class  and  one  which 
clearly  can  always  be  settled  judicially.  Many 
disputes  can  be  reduced  to  a  question  of  facts — 
i.  e.,  both  sides  admit  that  if  such  and  such  a  thing 
happened,  then  certain  rights  and  obligations  exist; 
but  one  side  asserts  and  the  other  denies  that  the 
thing  happened.  The  Dogger  Bank  Inquiry 
referred  to  in  detail  above  is  the  best  example  of 
such  a  case. 

2.  Questions  of  title  to  territory  and  of  boundaries. 
These    questions    are    now    practically    always 

settled  judicially.  They  are  always  mixed  ques- 
tions of  law  and  facts  of  the  kind  which  the  civil 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  79 

courts  of  every  nation  under  the  sun  are  continually 
deciding.  They  fall  into  two  clearly  marked 
divisions : 

(1)  Where  the  divisional  line  between  two  States 
is  admitted  or  has  been  agreed  upon  and  a  dispute 
arises  as  to  the  actual  position  of  the  line  at  some 
particular  place.     These  cases  are  very  common 
and  are  really  settled  merely  by  interpreting  agree- 
ments or  treaties.    To  take  an  instance  at  random, 
the   Costa   Rican-Nicaraguan   Boundary  Dispute 
was  referred  to  arbitration  in  1886.     One  of  the 
chief  points  that  the  arbitrator  had  to  determine 
was  what  the  Treaty  of   1858,   which  fixed  the 
boundaries,  meant  by  "the  centre  of  Salinas  Bay." 

(2)  Where  the  divisional  line  has  not  been  ad- 
mitted or  defined  in  an  agreement  or  treaty,  and 
the  dispute  is  as  to  the  title  to  particular  pieces  of 
territory.     These   cases   invariably   involve   ques- 
tions of  interpretation  of  documents,  or  of  facts, 
or  both.     The  claims  are  based  upon  possession, 
occupation,  usucaption,  or  prescription,  and  upon 
international   documents   alleged   to  grant   rights 
over  the  territory.     The  Court  has  merely  to  in- 
terpret such  documents  and  to  find  whether  the 
fact    of    possession,    occupation,    etc.,    has    been 
proved.     To  take,  again,  an  example  at  random: 
In  the  Argentine-Paraguayan  Boundary  dispute, 
referred  to  arbitration  in  1876,  Paraguay  claimed 
title  to  a  piece  of  territory — 


(i)  On  first  occupation; 
(ii)  On  uninterrupted  possession; 


80  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

(iii)  On  a  royal  decree  of  1783; 

(iv)  On  usucaption  and  prescription. 

The  Argentine  Republic  tried  unsuccessfully  to 
rebut  these  claims. 

3.  Questions  as  to  the  interpretation  and  applica- 
tion of  treaties  or  International  Law,  of  claims  founded 
on  treaties  or  International  Law,  or  alleged  breach  of 
treaties  or  International  Law. 

These  are  cases  in  which  one  side  claims  a  right 
and  another  denies  an  obligation  under  an  existing 
treaty  or  International  Law.  As  regards  treaties, 
anyone  who  thinks  that  nations  ought  to  be  bound 
by  treaties  must  admit  that  the  best  way  of  settling 
disputes  as  to  the  rights  and  obligations  created  by 
particular  treaties  is  to  refer  them  to  a  judiciary. 
Many  people,  however,  who  would  agree  to  this 
would  hesitate  over  International  Law.  It  is 
often  said  that  it  is  impossible  to  ask  an  Inter- 
national Court  to  administer  International  Law, 
because  the  Law  is  based  on  custom  and  does  not 
exist.  But  if  law  based  on  custom  cannot  be 
interpreted  by  courts  of  law,  practically  every 
court  in  Great  Britain  would  have  to  be  shut  up 
to-morrow.  Many  international  laws  exist  and 
are  ascertainable,  and  the  courts  of  this  country 
and  of  the  United  States  have  frequently  had  to 
take  cognizance  of  them.  Many  international  dis- 
putes are  concerned  simply  with  the  rights  and 
obligations  under,  or  the  interpretation  of,  such 
laws.  For  example,  the  dispute  referred  to  in  the 
last  chapter,  between  Greece  and  Turkey,  settled 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  81 

by  the  Conference  of  Paris  of  1869,  was  a  case  in 
point.  The  Conference  drew  the  attention  of 
Greece,  as  it  said,  to  a  "  rule  of  conduct  common  to 
all  Governments."  "The  principles  of  Interna- 
tional Law,"  it  was  pointed  out,  "oblige  ...  all 
nations  not  to  allow  bands  to  be  recruited  on  their 
territory,  or  ships  to  arm  in  her  ports,  to  attack  a 
neighboring  State."  Clearly  the  rights  and  obli- 
gations of  two  States  under  this  law  can  in  any 
particular  case  be  decided  by  a  judicial  tribunal, 
and  they  must  be  so  decided  if  the  society  of  na- 
tions is  ever  going  to  be  governed  by  general  rules 
of  conduct. 

4.  Questions   as   to   the   responsibility   or   blame 
attaching  to  national  agents  or  representatives  for  the 
results  of  acts  of  such  agents  or  representatives. 

The  Dogger  Bank  Inquiry  alone  is  sufficient  to 
show  that  such  questions  are  always  capable  of 
being  put  to  a  judicial  tribunal  in  a  legal  form. 
Another  example  of  importance  was  the  Casa 
Blanca  dispute  between  France  and  Germany, 
which  was  referred  to  the  Hague  Tribunal  in  1908. 

5.  Questions   as   to   certain   kinds   of  pecuniary 
claims. 

There  are  certain  definable  kinds  of  international 
claims  which  are  exactly  of  the  same  kind  as  those 
which  are  adjudicated  in  every  civil  court.  First, 
there  are  claims  for  pecuniary  damages  when  the 
principle  of  indemnity  is  recognized  by  the  parties. 
At  the  Hague  Conference  such  claims  figured  on 
the  Anglo-American  list  of  questions  upon  which 


82  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

arbitration  was  to  be  obligatory,  and  thirty-one 
States  voted  for  the  proposal  and  only  eight 
against  it.  Secondly,  there  are  questions  as  to  the 
recovery  of  contract  debts  claimed  from  the  Govern- 
ment of  one  country  by  the  Government  of  another 
country  as  being  due  to  its  nationals.  Arbitration  is 
in  fact  already  obligatory  for  differences  as  to  the 
recovery  of  such  debts. 

These  five  classes  are  all  strictly  judicial  ques- 
tions; that  is  to  say,  that  if  they  were  referred  to  a 
tribunal,  the  court  would  be  required  to  decide 
either  (i)  whether  alleged  facts  were  proved  to 
exist  or  to  have  existed;  or  (2)  whether  certain 
rights  and  obligations  resulted  under  particular 
circumstances  from  certain  contractual  documents 
or  general  rules  of  international  conduct;  or  (3) 
the  exact  sum  of  money  due  from  one  party  to 
another  under  a  contract  or  as  an  indemnity.  If, 
then,  nations  are  to  be  bound  by  the  contracts 
into  which  they  enter  and  by  general  rules  of 
conduct  in  the  form  of  law,  then  it  seems  both 
practicable  and  reasonable  that  they  should  bind 
themselves  to  submit  these  five  classes  of  ques- 
tions to  arbitration. 

But  in  the  present  state  of  affairs  there  would 
be  more  likelihood  of  nations  actually  doing  so  if 
an  additional  safeguard  to  national  interests  could 
be  introduced.  International  Law,  it  must  be 
admitted,  even  where  it  exists,  is  extremely  un- 
satisfactory and  confused  on  many  points.  It  is 
doubtful,  therefore,  whether  any  nation  would  be 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  83 

well-advised  to  bind  itself  absolutely  to  refer  all 
disputes  to  a  tribunal  which  would  be  compelled 
to  decide  every  issue  strictly  in  accordance  with 
the  existing  law.  Moreover,  we  come  back  once 
more  here  to  the  problem  of  the  status  quo.  A 
judicial  tribunal  of  this  sort  must  by  its  nature 
recognize  and  uphold  the  existing  constitution  of 
the  society  of  nations  based  upon  treaties.  It 
would  be  essentially  that  conservative  element 
which  we  showed  to  be  necessary  in  every  society 
and  which  maintains  the  existing  order  of  things. 
Nor  must  we  forget  that  it  so  happens  that  it  is 
always  our  particular  interest  as  a  nation  to  pre- 
serve the  existing  order  of  things.  In  the  inter- 
national system  Great  Britain  is  naturally  in  the 
position  which  the  rich  capitalist  employer  holds 
in  the  industrial  system.  She  has  usually  nothing 
to  gain  by  a  change  and  therefore  thinks  that  she 
must  lose  by  it.  She  is  always  conservative  and 
therefore  in  favor  of  arbitration  and  a  rigid  ad- 
herence to  existing  treaties.  But  that  ought  not 
to  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  it  may  be  in  the  in- 
terests of  other  nations  and  of  the  world  generally 
that  changes  should  take  place,  and  that,  if  an 
arrangement  which  maintains  the  existing  order  of 
things  is  essential,  an  arrangement  which  makes 
it  possible  to  upset  it  in  an  orderly  manner  is  no 
less  essential. 

At  the  present  moment  there  are  only  two 
methods  by  which  the  existing  order  of  things  can 
be  upset — negotiation  and  war.  It  is  only  ob- 
tuseness  and  lack  of  imagination  on  our  part  if  we 


84 


do  not  see  that  no  nation,  whose  interests  are  not 
in  preserving  the  status  quo,  will  give  up  the  power 
of  going  to  war  and  will  bind  itself  absolutely  to 
arbitration  unless  some  other  possible  method  of 
varying  the  status  quo  is  assured  to  it.  The  fact 
that  Germany  opposed  and  Britain  supported 
obligatory  arbitration  at  the  Hague  Conference 
does  not  prove  the  wickedness  of  Germany  and 
the  pureness  of  Britain,  any  more  than  the  refusal 
of  the  wage  earners  to  accept  the  employers'  pro- 
posals— namely,  to  give  up  their  weapon,  the 
strike,  and  bind  themselves  to  arbitrate — proves 
a  moral  superiority  of  the  employing  over  the 
employed  class. 

I  suggest  that,  although  nations  whose  interests 
are  not,  as  ours,  bound  up  with  the  existing  order 
of  things  will  not  accept  obligatory  arbitration 
alone,  they  might  agree  to  refer  all  "legal"  ques- 
tions falling  under  the  five  heads  defined  above 
either  to  a  judicial  tribunal  or  to  a  true  inter- 
national legislative  conference.  My  proposal  is 
that  nations  shall  bind  themselves  to  refer  all 
legal  questions,  not  settled  by  negotiation,  to  a 
judicial  tribunal,  but  that  in  every  case  either 
party  to  a  dispute  shall  have  the  right  to  demand 
that  the  question  shall  be  submitted  to  an  inter- 
national Conference  of  representatives  before  it  is 
referred  to  the  judicial  tribunal.  A  nation  refus- 
ing to  accept  immediate  and  direct  arbitration 
would  be  required  to  state: 

(a)  Whether  it  demanded  that  the  Conference 
should  consider  and  pronounce  a  decision  on  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  85 

whole  question  in  dispute.  If  it  did  so  demand, 
then  it  would  be  bound  to  abide  by  the  decision  of 
the  majority  of  the  Conference,  and  the  question 
would  not  be  remitted  to  a  judiciary;  or 

(b)  Whether  it  demanded  merely  that  the  Con- 
ference should  consider  and  decide  by  a  majority 
vote  the  rules  of  law  and  the  international  rights 
and  obligations  of  which  the  judicial  tribunal 
should  take  cognizance  in  deciding  the  matter  in 
dispute.  It  is  necessary  to  guard  against  mis- 
understanding, and,  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  to 
insist  upon  the  following  points  in  this  suggestion: 

(1)  It  is  not  a  proposal  that  nations  should  con- 
sent to  be  bound  in  all  cases  either  by  the  decision 
of  a  judicial  tribunal  or  by  that  of  a  legislating 
Conference.     It  proposes  that  nations  should  do 
so  only  in  legal  cases — i.  e.,  in  disputes  which  can 
be  decided  by  a  consideration  of  existing  law  and 
existing  legal  rights  and  obligations. 

(2)  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  the  large  majority 
of  such  disputes  the  case  would  be  remitted  direct 
by  both  parties  to  a  judicial  tribunal. 

(3)  But  in  a  minority  of  such  cases,  owing  to  the 
unsatisfactory  condition  of  international  legisla- 
tion and  the  other  causes  discussed  above,  it  is 
unreasonable  to  expect  nations  to  allow  the  dispute 
to  be  settled  by  a  tribunal  which  can  only  strictly 
interpret  and  apply  the  law.     My  proposal  would 
permit  a  nation  in  such  cases  to  bring  the  dispute 
before  an  international  Conference,  which  would 
take  into  consideration  not  only  what  was  strictly 
legal,  but  what  was  equitable.     Thus  the  objecting 


86  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

State  might  ask  the  Conference  either  to  lay  down 
the  principles  of  law  suitable  for  the  particular 
circumstances  and  upon  which  the  tribunal  should 
base  its  judgment,  or  to  declare  how  far  under  the 
particular  circumstances  a  strict  application  of  the 
letter  of  treaties  would  be  equitable.  In  either  of 
these  cases  the  tribunal  would  then  decide  the  dis- 
pute upon  the  principles  laid  down  by  the  Con- 
ference. But,  further,  it  would  be  competent  to 
either  nation  to  demand  that  the  Conference 
should  not  only  define  the  principles,  but  should 
give  a  decision  in  accordance  with  equity  upon  the 
whole  dispute,  and  in  this  case  the  two  nations 
would  be  bound  to  abide  by  that  decision. 

(4)  The  last  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  provision 
would  have  to  be  made  for  cases  in  which  the 
question  whether  the  difference  was  one  which  fell 
under  one  of  the  five  heads  given  above,  and  must 
therefore  be  referred  to  a  tribunal,  was  itself  in 
dispute.  This,  of  course,  is  an  example  of  a  ques- 
tion as  to  the  competency  or  jurisdiction  of  a  court, 
which  continually  arises  wherever  there  is  a  judici- 
ary. Municipal  courts  frequently  have  to  decide 
questions  as  to  their  own  competency,  and  there 
seems  no  reason  why  an  International  Court 
should  not  be  given  the  power  to  do  the  same. 

I  have  now  said  all  that  I  have  to  say  upon  the 
definite  question  which  I  put  to  myself  for  dis- 
cussion at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter.  The 
answer  suggested  is  that  there  is  a  class  of  inter- 
national differences  and  disputes  which  have  now 
been  defined,  and  which  could  always  be  settled  by 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  87 

the  decision  of  a  judicial  tribunal,  and  that  there- 
fore the  proper  function  of  arbitration  or  a  judici- 
ary in  "some  international  authority"  is  exclusively 
to  decide  such  disputes.  There  is  now  a  question 
which  does  not  strictly  fall  within  the  limits  set 
for  this  chapter,  but  which  can  hardly  be  entirely 
ignored  in  a  discussion  of  arbitration  and  inter- 
national tribunals — namely,  the  constitution  of  an 
International  Court. 

This  problem  has  achieved  great  prominence  be- 
cause it  was  discussed  at  great  length  at  the  Hague 
Conference,  where  diplomatists  made  long  and 
abortive  attempts  to  set  up  a  permanent  Inter- 
national Court.  The  importance  of  the  question 
has,  I  believe,  been  in  this  way  exaggerated;  but 
before  proceeding  to  discuss  it,  it  is  advisable  to 
state  shortly  the  facts  of  which  people  are  not 
always  fully  aware.  Judicial  tribunals  to  which 
international  disputes  have  been  referred  have 
been  constituted  in  many  different  ways,  being 
called  commissions,  commissions  of  inquiry,  or 
courts  of  arbitration.  They  have  been  composed 
either  of  the  head  of  a  sovereign  State  or  of  one 
or  more  distinguished  persons,  frequently  pub- 
licists and  jurists  or,  as  in  the  Dogger  Bank  Com- 
mission, of  technical  experts.  The  method  of 
choosing  the  commissioners  or  arbitrators  has 
always  been  a  matter  for  negotiation  and.  agree- 
ment, and  has  often  been  one  of  considerable 
difficulty.  The  first  Hague  Conference  instituted 
what  is  called  in  the  convention  "the  Permanent 
Court  of  Arbitration."  This  tribunal  is  not 


88  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

strictly  a  permanent  court  at  all,  but  a  permanent 
list  of  arbitrators,  appointed  by  the  signatory 
Powers,  from  which  in  any  particular  case  arbitra- 
tors and  an  umpire  can  be  selected  to  form  a  court 
upon  rules  laid  down  in  the  convention.  The 
persons  appointed  by  the  signatory  Powers  are  to 
be  persons  "of  known  competency  in  questions  of 
International  Law." 

It  will  be  seen  that  hitherto  it  has  always  been 
necessary  to  constitute  an  International  Court 
anew  for  each  particular  international  dispute. 
The  second  Hague  Conference  attempted,  without 
success,  to  institute  a  permanent  international 
judiciary  side  by  side  with  the  existing  "Perma- 
nent Court  of  Arbitration."  They  proposed  to  call 
this  tribunal  "The  Judicial  Arbitration  Court," 
and  they  were  able  to  agree  so  far  as  to  draft  a 
convention  regulating  its  constitution.  It  was  to 
be  a  permanent  tribunal  in  the  sense  that  it  was 
to  be  a  court  composed  of  judges,  appointed  for 
twelve  years,  sitting  in  regular  and  continuous 
sessions.  But  when  the  Conference  came  to  con- 
sider the  way  in  which  the  judges  should  be  ap- 
pointed they  failed  to  reach  any  agreement,  and 
the  "Judicial  Arbitration  Court"  exists  only  in  a 
draft  convention.  The  failure  was  due  almost 
entirely  to  the  insistence  of  the  smaller  States  upon 
their  absolute  equality  as  sovereign  States  with 
the  Great  Powers.  If  a  large  number  of  States 
each  appoints  a  judge,  and  each  judge  actually 
sits  for  the  same  length  of  time,  one  of  two  things 
must  happen.  Either  the  court  which  actually 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  89 

tries  cases  must  be  composed  of  so  large  a  number 
of  judges  that  it  will  be  impossibly  unwieldy,  or 
the  duty  of  trying  cases  must  be  taken  by  the 
judges  in  rotation,  and  in  this  case  each  judge  will 
be  called  upon  only  at  very  long  intervals  to  take 
his  part  in  the  administration  of  International 
Law.  It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  Great 
Powers  hesitate  to  constitute  a  permanent  inter- 
national judiciary,  of  which  the  actual  court  might 
more  often  than  not  consist  of  judges  appointed 
by  the  States  of  Central  and  South  America,  Asia, 
and  the  Balkans.* 

With  these  facts  in  mind  it  is  possible  to  form 
some  opinion  as  to  the  importance  of  constituting 
a  permanent  official  international  judiciary.  One 
may  begin  by  adopting,  in  a  somewhat  altered 
form,  a  statement  of  Mr.  Baty's  in  his  book  on 
International  Law.  Our  aim  should  be,  he  says, 
"arbitration  which  is  obligatory  in  principle  and 
voluntary  in  detail";  and  he  apparently  advocates 
treaties  which  would  bind  nations  in  principle  to 
accept  arbitration  in  all  cases,  but  would  in  every 
case  leave  open  the  settlement  of  the  constitution 
of  the  arbitral  body.  We  have  given  reasons  for 
doubting  the  wisdom  of  nations  binding  them- 


*  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  States  of  Central  and  South  America, 
Asia,  and  the  Balkans  were  together  in  a  large  majority  at  the  Second 
Peace  Conference  over  the  eight  Great  Powers  plus  the  smaller  European 
States.  If  one  adds  Honduras  and  Costa  Rica,  making  at  least  forty-six 
sovereign  States,  Europe,  excluding  the  Balkans,  together  with  Japan  and 
the  United  States  provide  eighteen,  while  Central  and  South  America  pro- 
vide twenty,  the  Balkans  and  Asia  eight.  And  then  there  are  Abyssinia 
and  Liberia,  who  might  claim  inclusion! 
8 


90  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

selves  to  accept  arbitration  in  all  cases,  even  in 
principle,  and  therefore  we  will  alter  Mr.  Baty's 
statement,  and  say:  "In  principle  the  reference  of 
a  defined  class  of  international  disputes  to  a 
judicial  tribunal  should  be  obligatory,  in  detail  it 
should  as  far  as  possible  be  voluntary."  Many 
different  kinds  of  international  tribunal  have 
already  proved  their  worth,  and  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  they  will  do  so  again  in  the 
future.  The  art  of  administering  and  interpreting 
International  Law  has  only  just  been  born,  and 
we  know  so  little  about  it  that  by  trying  to  con- 
fine it  to  rigid  lines  we  may  easily  kill  it  in  in- 
fancy. We  should  aim,  therefore,  at  making 
reference  to  a  tribunal  obligatory  and  choice  of  a 
tribunal  voluntary. 

But  there  comes  a  point  at  which  the  choice 
itself  cannot  be  left  voluntary,  and  that  is  the 
point  at  which  the  parties  fail  to  agree  upon  the 
kind  of  tribunal  to  choose.  For  if  failure  to  agree 
as  to  the  tribunal  is  to  make  arbitration  *  im- 
possible, then  arbitration  is  obligatory  neither  in 
detail,  nor  in  principle,  nor  in  fact.  The  first 
necessity  is,  therefore,  to  give  States  the  greatest 
possible  latitude  in  choosing  the  tribunal  before 
which  they  will  bring  legal  disputes,  and  to  pro- 
vide a  particular  tribunal,  of  easy  access,  before 
which  such  disputes  must  be  brought  if  the  dis- 
puting States  cannot  agree  to  choose  a  tribunal. 
It  is  only  in  this  way  possible  to  make  the  refer- 

*  By  arbitration  in  this  and  the  following  paragraphs  I  mean  the  decision 
of  international  disputes  by  a  judicial  body. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  91 

ence  of  certain  disputes  to  arbitration  smooth, 
automatic  and  indisputable,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  ensure  to  nations  the  widest  freedom  of  choice 
in  details. 

It  follows  that  on  this  view  the  primary  im- 
portance of  a  central  international  tribunal  is  of 
a  somewhat  limited  nature.  All  we  want  is  that 
there  should  be  a  court  to  which,  under  certain 
circumstances,  disputes  can  be  easily  referred. 
Our  point  of  view  is  radically  different  from  many 
of  the  diplomatists  at  the  Hague  Conference. 
Some  of  them  envisaged  the  creation  of  two 
courts — the  existing  Hague  Tribunal,  which  would 
decide  questions  politiques,  and  the  new  "Judicial 
Arbitration  Court,"  which  would  decide  questions 
juridiques.  We  are  concerned  only  with  questions 
juridiques  and  only  with  the  problem  of  making 
arbitration  in  such  questions  really  obligatory. 
Again,  our  view  is  essentially  different  from  those 
whose  object  was  to  lure  nations  into  a  law  court 
by  building  one.  We  do  not  aim  at  spreading  the 
practice  of  arbitration  by  establishing  an  imposing 
permanent  tribunal,  but  to  make  an  agreement  to 
arbitrate  operative  by  providing  a  court  in  which 
that  agreement  can  be  carried  out. 

Our  view  of  "some  international  authority" 
does  imply  the  existence  of  an  official  permanent 
judiciary.  Does  the  existing  Hague  Tribunal 
meet  the  necessities  of  the  case?  In  a  sense  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  it  does  meet  the  bare  neces- 
sities. Sixteen  years  have  proved  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  constitute  a  Hague  Court  competent  to 


92  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

deal  with  important  international  disputes  of  a 
legal  nature.  An  adequate  procedure  has  been 
elaborated  and  laid  down,  and  a  workable  system 
of  selecting  the  judges  or  arbitrators.  If  the 
principle  of  obligatory  arbitration  of  questions 
juridiques  were  admitted,  all  that  we  should 
require  would  be  that  nations  should  bind 
themselves  to  refer  such  questions  to  the  Hague 
Tribunal  in  the  event  of  their  failing  to  agree 
upon  any  other  tribunal  to  which  it  should  be 
referred. 

But  though  the  non-existence  of  a  tribunal, 
permanent  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Judicial 
Arbitration  Court  would  have  been  permanent, 
is  not  an  absolute  obstacle  to  obligatory  arbitra- 
tion, it  is  true  that  the  existing  tribunal  is  far 
from  being  completely  satisfactory.  It  does  not, 
for  instance,  make  a  reference  to  arbitration 
"automatic"  or  even  "easy."  As  the  Report  of 
the  First  Committee  of  the  Second  Peace  Confer- 
ence says,  quoting  M.  Asser,  "II  est  difficile,  long, 
et  couteux  de  la  mattre  en  mouvement."  This  is 
obviously  a  grave  defect  in  the  Central  Inter- 
national Judiciary,  and  it  is  a  defect  inherent  in 
any  tribunal  which  has  to  be  constituted  anew  for 
every  case  brought  before  it.  Moreover,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  it  is  only  by  interpretation  in  a  per- 
manent tribunal  with  a  tradition  of  continuity 
that  a  logical  evolution  of  International  Law  will 
become  possible.  It  is  therefore  extremely  de- 
sirable, though  not  absolutely  necessary,  that  the 
problem  over  which  the  Hague  Conference  failed 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  93 

should  be  solved,  and  that  a  tribunal  of  the  nature 
of  their  Judicial  Arbitration  Court  should  be 
established. 

It  is  clear  that  it  is  not  possible — nor,  one  may 
add,  reasonable — to  establish  it  if  between  forty 
and  fifty  States  are  to  have  the  right  of  appointing 
judges,  and  each  State  is  to  claim  absolute  equality 
as  regards  the  right  of  appointment.  And  yet  it 
does  appear  to  be  inevitable  that  the  Central 
Judiciary  of  the  International  Authority  should 
be  composed  of  judges  appointed  by  the  con- 
stituent nations.  It  follows,  that  either  the  smaller 
States  will  have  to  be  left  out  of  the  International 
Authority,  or  they  must  give  up  in  some  respects 
their  claim  to  the  complete  equality  of  all  inde- 
pendent sovereign  States.  For  the  small  States 
to  stand  out  of  the  International  Authority  would 
lead  inevitably  to  an  absolute  world-hegemony  of 
the  Great  Powers — a  result  which  would  be  good 
neither  for  the  morals  of  the  Great  Powers  nor 
for  the  interests  of  the  Small.  The  independence 
of  weak  States  is  in  perpetual  jeopardy  as  long  as 
arms  remain  the  constant  arbiter  in  international 
affairs;  it  will  receive  an  amazing  increase  of 
security  if  there  can  be  established  any  pacific 
method  of  regulating  those  affairs.  Nothing, 
therefore,  could  be  more  blindly  foolish  than  for 
such  States  to  stand  in  the  way  of,  or  outside,  an 
international  system  because  of  some  semi-tech- 
nical, wholly  unreasonable  shibboleth  of  national 
honor  or  national  sovereignty. 

What  is  required,  then,  in  the  Central  Judiciary 


94  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

is  a  permanent  court  composed  of  a  small  number 
of  jurist  judges  appointed  by  the  constituent  States 
for  a  long  term  of  years.  There  are  several  good 
schemes  in  existence,  any  one  of  which  would  prob- 
ably have  been  accepted  by  the  Powers  at  The 
Hague  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  action  of  the  small 
American  States.  The  systems  on  which  these 
different  schemes  would  work  may  be  distinguished 
as  follows: 

1 .  The  scheme  recommended  by  the  Sub-Committee 
of  the  Conference. 

A  court  of  seventeen  judges  organized  for  a 
definite  term  of  years.  One  judge  nominated  by 
each  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  to  act  as  judge  for 
the  whole  period.  One  judge  nominated  by  each 
of  the  other  Powers  to  act  for  parts  of  that  period, 
varying  in  proportion  to  the  population,  etc.,  of 
each  Power. 

2.  Each  Great  Power  to  nominate  one  judge. 
Nine  other  Powers  to  be  selected  by  the  Confer- 
ence as  representing  all  parts  of  the  world  and 
with  the  power  of  each  nominating  one  judge. 
The  Court  to  consist  therefore  of  seventeen  judges. 

3.  America  as  a  unit  to  select  four  judges,  the 
remaining  nations  to  elect  thirteen. 

4.  Various  schemes  of  election  of  a  small  num- 
ber of  judges,  each  nation  having  one  vote. 

Of  these  schemes,  No.  I  has  two  advantages: 
It  gives  each  Power  the  right  of  appointing  a  judge, 
and  it  yet  provides  that  the  judges  appointed  by 
the  Great  Powers  sit  continuously.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  suffers  from  a  disadvantage  in  that  a  large 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  95 

number  of  judges  will  be  continually  changing  if 
there  are  many  small  constituent  Powers.  This 
disadvantage  is  very  clearly  seen  in  the  scheme 
actually  adopted  by  the  signatory  Powers  to  the 
Convention  relative  to  the  establishment  of  an 
International  Prize  Court.  The  Court  is  com- 
posed of  fifteen  judges,  appointed  for  six  years. 
The  judges  appointed  by  the  eight  Great  Powers 
always  sit,  while  the  judges  and  deputy  judges 
appointed  by  the  other  Powers  sit  by  rota.  The 
rota  is  given  in  an  elaborate  table  annexed  to  the 
convention — for  each  year  of  the  period  of  six 
years  the  nations  supplying  the  seven  judges  and 
seven  deputy  judges  are  enumerated,  and  an  analy- 
sis gives  the  following  results : 

One  nation  supplies  a  judge  for  four  years  and 
a  deputy  judge  for  four  years. 

One  nation  supplies  a  judge  for  three  years  and 
a  deputy  judge  for  three  years. 

Nine  nations  supply  a  judge  for  two  years  and  a 
deputy  judge  for  two  years. 

Three  nations  supply  a  judge  for  one  year  and  a 
deputy  judge  for  one  year. 

Four  nations  supply  a  judge  for  two  years. 

Six  nations  supply  a  judge  for  one  year. 

Fourteen  nations  supply  a  deputy  judge  for  one 
year. 

Scheme  No.  2  gives  a  very  permanent  tribunal 
and  ensures  that  the  Great  Powers  are  repre- 
sented, but  one  has  some  doubts  as  to  the  feasi- 
bility of  selecting  nine  States  to  represent  the  rest 
of  the  world  in  appointing  judges.  Nos.  3  and  4 


96  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

both  give  us  permanent  tribunals,  but  they  have 
this  defect,  that  the  small  nations  have  an  over- 
whelming voice  in  the  constitution  of  the  court, 
and  therefore  it  is  possible,  if  not  probable,  that  it 
will  be  largely  or  wholly  composed  of  jurists  from 
small  States.  Nobody  could,  of  course,  legiti- 
mately object  to  citizens  of  Haiti,  Siam,  Para- 
guay and  Panama  forming  the  International  Judi- 
ciary if  they  were  persons  of  commanding  judicial 
ability  and  legal  eminence,  but  one  may  legiti- 
mately doubt  whether  such  persons  will  be  found 
as  easily  in  those  countries  as  in  Germany,  France, 
and  the  United  States. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  No.  I  is  the 
most  attractive  of  these  schemes.  But  a  still 
simpler  system  might  be  adopted  combining  parts 
of  these  four  schemes.  Thus,  if  the  tribunal  is  to 
be  composed  of  seventeen  judges,  eight  would  be 
appointed  by  the  eight  Great  Powers,  and  nine 
would  be  elected  by  the  other  States  from  persons 
nominated  by  those  States.  A  judge  appointed  or 
nominated  by  a  nation  would  be  debarred  from 
sitting  as  judge  upon  any  case  'in  which  that  nation 
was  a  party.  In  this  way  the  International 
Authority  would  obtain  a  permanent  tribunal, 
composed  of  men  best  able  throughout  the  world 
to  interpret  and  apply  a  great  system  of  Inter- 
national Law,  "a  court  of  law"  (to  quote  America's 
representative  at  the  second  Conference)  "for  the 
trial  of  legal  questions — questions  involving  the 
interpretation  of  treaties,  questions  which  judges 
and  lawyers  are  best  able  to  decide."  And  there 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  97 

is  no  reason  why  the  existing  Hague  Court  should 
not  go  on  existing  side  by  side  with  this  more  per- 
manent tribunal.  Nothing  should  be  done  to  re- 
strict the  choice  of  tribunal  to  which  nations  are 
to  refer  questions  in  dispute;  and  if  States  prefer 
a  court  in  which  judges  are  appointed  by  the 
parties  themselves  to  try  a  particular  case,  the 
Permanent  Court  of  Arbitration  provides  them 
with  an  easy  method  of  giving  effect  to  this 
preference. 


CHAPTER  VII 

AN    INTERNATIONAL   AUTHORITY 

THE  point  has  now  been  reached  at  which  it 
is  necessary  to  pause  and  look  back  from 
it  to  our  starting  point  in  order  to  see  how 
far — if  at  all — we  have  made  progress  to  the 
goal.  The  starting  point  was  the  past,  the  goal 
an  International  Authority  or  organization,  no 
longer  qualified  by  that  shadowy  "some,"  but 
defined  and  solidified  by  dull  facts  gathered  out 
of  the  past.  The  facts  and  conclusions  which  I 
have  ventured  to  pick  up  from  the  roadside  as 
useful  for  this  purpose  may  be  summarized  as 
follows : 

(1)  A  vague  protoplasmic  International  Author- 
ity has  made  its   appearance  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  a  primitive  organism  with  two  rudimen- 
tary organs,  one  consisting  of  judicial  tribunals 
and  the  other  of  Conferences  of  representatives. 

(2)  The  judicial  tribunals  are  capable  of  devel- 
opment into  a  regular  organ  of  an  International 
Authority.     Their  function  is  to  decide  interna- 
tional questions  which  can  be  reduced  to  a  legal 
form,  and  such  questions  are  capable  of  definition, 
and  have  been  defined.     International  organiza- 
tion must  begin  with  machinery  through  which  the 
obligation  to  refer  all  such  questions  to  a  tribunal 

98 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  99 

(or  alternatively  under  certain  circumstances  to  a 
Conference)  can  be  carried  into  effect. 

(3)  The  past  indicates  the  Conference  of  repre- 
sentatives as  the  most  fitting  organ  for  dealing 
with  questions  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  a  legal 
form.     Its  development  must  proceed  by  an  ex- 
tension of  the  principle  which  denies  the  right  of 
any  one  nation,  and  asserts  the  right  of  the  nations 
collectively,  to  settle  such  international  questions 
when  negotiation  has  failed  and  the  only  alternative 
is  war.     The  extension  of  this  principle  raises  prob- 
lems, discussed  and  left  unsolved  in  Chapter  V,  which 
will  again  have  to  be  considered  in  this  chapter. 

(4)  The  past  also  indicates  the  Conference  as 
the   proper  organ   for    performing  the   most  im- 
portant function  of  making,  with  authority  and 
precision,   general   rules  of  international  conduct 
or  laws.     The  development  of  this  function  is  at- 
tended   with    difficulties    very    similar    to    those 
referred  to  in  the  last  paragraph. 

It  will  be  seen  that  these  suggestions  and  facts 
have  not  brought  us  very  near  an  International 
Authority  or  even  an  international  organization. 
We  have  followed  the  footsteps  of  history,  and 
the  great  lesson  of  the  past  is  that  diplomacy  has 
not  attempted  any  organization  in  the  methods 
of  settling  international  affairs.  In  almost  every 
other  branch  of  human  activities — in  national 
and  municipal  government,  in  industry  and  com- 
merce and  finance,  in  science  and  medicine,  even 
in  sport  and  games — the  whole  progress  in  mod- 
ern times  has  been  bound  up  with  an  enormous 


100  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

elaboration  of  parts  and  functions,  an  intricate 
machinery,  and  a  conscious  co-ordination  of  the 
parts  of  the  machine.  The  relationships  of  States 
have  no  more  escaped  this  elaborate  complica- 
tion than  have  the  factory  and  the  football  field; 
but  the  diplomatist,  unlike  the  manufacturer  and 
the  footballer,  has  not  attempted  to  control  this 
complication  by  co-ordinating  the  different  parts 
of  his  machine.  He  has  his  various  methods  of 
regulating  the  relationships  of  States — negotiation, 
mediation,  arbitration,  Conference — but  he  has 
never  co-ordinated  them.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
this  has  been  a  very  serious  obstacle  to  the  pacific 
settlement  of  international  questions.  The  most 
obvious  result  is,  of  course,  that  in  times  of  sud- 
den and  acute  dispute  the  difficulty  even  of  getting 
his  machinery  to  work  is  insuperable.  When  the 
ordinary  methods  of  negotiation  have  suddenly 
ended  in  a  deadlock,  the  diplomatist  does  not  find 
in  the  co-ordinated  international  machinery  any 
lever  to  pull  in  order  to  set  in  motion  a  mediator, 
a  tribunal,  or  a  Conference.  He  has  to  begin  all 
over  again  negotiating  by  the  ordinary  methods 
as  to  whether  mediation,  or  arbitration,  or  a  Con- 
ference shall  be  set  in  motion.  The  machinery  of 
peace  itself  becomes  merely  a  counter  in  the  dip- 
lomatic game;  and,  while  Sir  Edward  Grey  is 
proposing  mediations  and  Conferences,  the  co- 
ordinated machinery  of  war  is  getting  smoothly 
and  automatically  to  work.* 

*  See  the  grimly  illuminating  passage  in  the  telegram  of  the  Austrian 
Ambassador  at  Petrograd  to  Count  Berchtold  (in  the  Austro-Hungarian 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  101 

And  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  this  system,  or 
want  of  system,  has  a  further  and  less  obvious 
result.  It  is  difficult  to  know  exactly  what  the 
ordinary  business  is  which  takes  place  daily  behind 
the  mysterious  doors  of  Foreign  Offices  and  Chan- 
celleries, but  there  is  reason  for  believing  that  a 
very  large  number  of  international  questions  are 
raised  but  never  settled  by  negotiation,  and  they 
remain,  therefore,  a  constant  source  of  official  and 
a  recurring  source  of  popular  irritation.  Diplo- 
matists themselves  may  be  left  to  describe  the 
actual  state  of  affairs  in  their  own  words.  The 
following  is  a  quotation  from  the  official  report 
of  the  discussion  at  the  second  Hague  Conference 
upon  the  proposal  that  the  Cour  de  Justice  Arbi- 
trale  should  be  permanent,  and  that  the  judges 
should  reside  at  The  Hague:  "L'on  ajouta  q'une 
residence  continue  a  La  Haye  serait  aussi  incom- 
mode pour  les  juges  que  peu  favorable  a  la  dignite 
de  la  Cour  si  dans  les  premiers  mois  ou  les  prem- 
ieres annees  de  son  existence  peu  ou  point  de 
causes  lui  etaient  soumises.  Mr.  Choate  et  le 
Baron  Marschall  repondaient  a  cela  que  les  Chan- 
celleries etaient  encombrees  d'affaires  litigieuses  qui 
attendent  un  reglement  definitif  et  qu'une  fois  la 
Cour  etablie  les  puissances  signataires  s'empres- 
seraient  de  les  leur  soumettre" 

Red  Book,  No.  28,  July  26,  1914):  "Count  Pourtales  has  called  the  Russian 
Minister's  attention  in  the  most  serious  manner  to  the  fact  that  nowadays 
measures  of  mobilization  would  be  a  highly  dangerous  form  of  diplomatic 
pressure.  For,  in  that  event,  the  purely  military  consideration  of  the  ques- 
tion by  the  general  staffs  would  find  expression,  and  if  that  button  were 
once  touched  in  Germany,  the  situation  would  get  out  of  control." 


102 


A  deliberate  coordination  of  the  machinery  of 
international  relationship  is  therefore  absolutely 
essential  as  a  first  step  towards  preventing  war. 
It  is  in  fact  the  A,  B,  C  of  international  organiza- 
tion, the  framework  about  which  an  International 
Authority  can  be  built.  Organization  is  prelimi- 
nary to  the  constitution  of  an  authority,  and  if  it 
is  to  proceed  along  the  lines  indicated  by  the  past, 
it  must  consist  in  the  construction  of  a  regular 
procedure  under  which  the  several  kinds  of  inter- 
national disputes  can  be  necessarily  referred  either 
to  a  tribunal  or  to  a  Conference. 

The  simplest  way  of  approaching  the  question 
is  to  begin  with  the  minimum  of  organization 
possible  and  see  what  an  extension  of  it  would 
involve.  At  the  last  Hague  Conference  there 
were  44  sovereign  States  represented.  If  one 
adds  to  these  Honduras,  Costa  Rica,  Abyssinia, 
and  Liberia  (which  did  not  send  representatives), 
one  gets  a  total  of  48  independent  sovereign  States 
in  the  world.  These  48  States  might  agree:  (i) 
To  set  up  a  judicial  tribunal  on  the  lines  indicated; 
(2)  to  refer  all  questions  falling  within  the  five 
classes  defined  as  legal  questions  to  a  tribunal 
agreed  upon  by  the  parties  or  to  the  central  tribu- 
nal (or  alternatively  under  particular  circum- 
stances to  a  Conference);  (3)  to  refer  all  other 
questions  and  differences  for  examination  and 
report  to  a  Conference. 

This  is,  it  will  be  seen,  the  least  possible  amount 
of  organization  of  international  machinery  on  past 
lines  that  can  be  conceived.  But  if  it  came  into 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  103 

existence  there  would  still  be  no  International 
Authority.  Each  isolated  State  would  simply  be 
bound  by  a  bare  agreement  with  all  the  other 
States  to  follow  a  certain  method  of  procedure. 
It  is  possible  that  even  a  primitive  and  simple 
organization  like  this  might  be  a  great  advance 
towards  the  prevention  of  war,  but  it  is  obvious 
that  it  is  a  very  fragile  bond  which  in  this  way 
would  be  tied  between  nations.  The  very  word 
"authority"  implies  something  more  than  this — 
some  right  and  power  of  the  organization,  as  a 
whole,  over  the  individuals  which  form  its  parts. 
An  International  Authority  implies,  therefore, 
some  rights  and  power  in  the  nations  collectively 
over  the  individual  nations  which  are  the  con- 
stituents of  the  authority. 

We  come  back,  then,  from  a  different  angle  to 
those  difficulties  which  were  left  unsolved  in 
Chapter  V;  for  if  the  future  is  to  develop  logically 
from  the  past,  the  central  point  in  the  international 
organization  and  authority  will  be  the  Conference. 
That  means  that  the  abstract  conclusion  arrived 
at  in  the  last  paragraph  appears  here  as  the  par- 
ticular and  practical  problems:  "What  shall  be 
the  competency  of  an  International  Conference? 
What  rights  can  be  given  to  the  nations  to  settle 
questions  and  to  make  rules  collectively  in  such 
Conferences?  And  what  powers  shall  be  given  to 
the  nations  collectively  to  enforce  the  rights  and 
the  decisions  of  their  Conferences?" 

Before  proceeding  to  reconsider  these  problems 
in  detail,  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  a  fact  which 


104  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

may  appear  to  some  people  an  abstract  and  irri- 
tating quibble,  but  which,  I  believe,  is  for  all  that 
of  importance.  A  right,  and  the  power  to  enforce 
that  right,  and  the  right  to  exercise  power  to 
enforce  that  right,  are  three  entirely  different  things. 
Thus,  an  international  organization  might  be  con- 
structed merely  by  States  admitting  the  right  of 
the  nations  to  settle  collectively  by  decisions  in 
Conferences  certain  questions.  That  is  one  stage 
towards  an  International  Authority.  A  second 
stage  comes  when  the  nations  not  only  have  the 
right  to  decide  questions  collectively,  but  the 
power  to  enforce  their  decision;  and  a  third  stage 
when  nations  not  only  have  this  right  and  this 
power,  but  also  the  right  to  exercise  collectively 
the  power  to  enforce  collective  decisions.  The 
importance  of  the  distinction  becomes  apparent 
when  one  considers  what  have  been  called  "sanc- 
tions." It  may  be  necessary  or  politic  to  con- 
stitute an  International  Authority  with  rights  over 
the  individual  constituent  nations  and  yet  without 
any  sanctions.  And  one  may  go  still  further  and 
say  that  there  is  no  reason  why  an  International 
Authority  should  be  in  this  respect  uniform  in  all 
its  parts.  It  may  be  politic  to  give  an  Interna- 
tional Conference  the  right  both  to  decide  certain 
questions  and  to  enforce  its  decisions,  while  in 
other  classes  of  questions  it  may  be  necessary  to 
give  the  right  to  decide  and  to  withhold  the  right 
to  enforce  the  decision. 

If  we  return  to  the  problem  as  we  left  it  in 
Chapter  V,  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  ques- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  105 

tion  was  whether  Conferences  could  be  trans- 
formed into  Legislatures,  and  whether  the  rights 
of  a  majority  to  bind  a  minority  in  an  International 
Conference  can  be  admitted  and  defined.  It  is 
clear  that  our  answer  to  these  questions  must  to 
some  extent  depend  upon  our  conception  of  the 
constitution  of  an  International  Authority.  Many 
people  at  the  present  time  seem  to  think  that 
there  is  no  half-way  house  between  a  federation 
into  a  world-State  and  the  existing  splendid  isola- 
tion of  independent  States.  If  this  is  true,  our 
alternatives  are  Utopia  and  chaos,  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  which  is  the  more  unsatisfactory. 
For  however  attractive  a  world-State  may  be  to 
our  imaginations,  a  little  reflection,  aided  by  the 
sobering  study  of  protocols,  blue  books  and  white 
papers,  will  show  that  in  the  world  of  actual  facts 
there  is  no  ground  prepared  for  the  reception  of 
so  strange  a  plant. 

A  federation  of  the  world,  or  a  federation  of 
Europe,  implies  the  construction  of  an  International 
State — a  Bundesstaat.  It  would  be  necessary 
strictly  and  accurately  to  define  the  respective 
spheres  of  Federal  and  State  government.  The 
model  for  the  International  State  would  be  the 
German  Empire  or  the  United  States  of  America. 
The  International  Conference  would  be  trans- 
formed into  a  true  International  Parliament,  in 
which  sat,  not  the  representatives  of  independent 
States,  but  the  representatives  of  the  peoples  of 
those  States.  In  this  way  we  easily  solve  the 
question  of  the  right  of  the  majority  to  bind  the 


106  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

minority,  because  the  sphere  of  the  federal  body 
would  be  strictly  defined,  and  within  that  sphere 
the  majority  of  representatives  would,  ex  hypothesi, 
bind  the  minority. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  only  a  writer  of  imaginative 
fiction  who,  with  a  wave  of  his  pen  and  a  row  of 
dots  across  the  page,  can  transport  us  from  a 
world  of  Hague  Conferences  and  Great  Wars  direct 
into  a  World  Set  Free.  Before  you  get  the  nations 
of  the  world  to  enter  into  this  International  State, 
and  before  you  set  up  this  Parliament  of  Nations, 
you  have  got  to  solve  those  two  difficulties  of 
Chapter  V  in  their  most  insoluble  form  —  the 
difficulty  of  diverse  national  systems  and  ideals, 
and  the  difficulty  of  accurately  defining  the  spheres 
of  national  and  international  government.  The 
time  for  seriously  considering  an  International 
Federal  State  will  have  arrived  only  when  some- 
one provides  a  draft  constitution  in  which  one  can 
see  legally  defined  the  parts  of  their  affairs  which 
the  British,  and  Persian,  and  American,  and  Chinese 
peoples  are  to  be  called  upon  to  place  in  the  hands 
of  the  federal  body.  And  the  person  who  succeeds 
in  doing  this  will  have  to  go  on  to  show  that  there 
is  any  possibility  of  two  nations  with  such  different 
institutions  and  ideals  as,  say,  Persia  and  Britain, 
uniting  in  so  close  a  union  as  is  implied  in  a  Federal 
State. 

One  is  therefore  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  an 
International  Federal  State — a  Bundesstaat — is 
Utopian,  and  that  an  International  Authority,  if 
it  can  be  constituted  at  all,  must  take  the  form  of  a 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  107 

Staatenbund,  a  federation  of  States.  There  fol- 
lows, too,  the  very  important  consequence  that  the 
representatives  in  the  central  organ  of  that 
authority  will  be  representatives  of  independent 
sovereign  States  and  not  of  the  people  of  those 
States.  His  Excellency  the  Right  Honorable  Sir 
Edward  Fry,  G.C.B.,  and  His  Excellency  Samad 
Khan  Momtazos-Saltaneh  could  sit  together  at 
The  Hague  Conference,  despite  the  difference 
between  Teheran  and  London,  between  the  weald 
of  Sussex  and  the  plains  of  Persia,  simply  because 
each  of  them  came  there  as  the  representative  of  a 
single  independent  State,  or  rather  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  that  State.  This  is  possible  because  the 
Governments  of  all  States  are  sufficiently  homogene- 
ous, even  though  the  head  of  the  one  Government 
may  derive  his  authority  from  the  Sun,  a  second 
from  an  Act  of  Parliament,  and  a  third  from 
Jehovah  or  the  Blessed  Trinity.  All  that  is  neces- 
sary is  that  the  State  should  have  a  Government. 
But,  if  the  people  are  to  be  represented,  there  must 
be  some  homogeneity  of  ideals  and  institutions 
among  the  peoples.  There  must,  for  example,  be  a 
uniform  system  of  choosing  or  electing  representa- 
tives, and  this  implies  a  homogeneity  which  does 
not  exist  between  the  free  American  citizen  and 
the  Russian  peasant,  to  say  nothing  of  Persian 
tribesmen  and  the  unintelligible  millions  of  China- 
men. 

Purely,  therefore,  for  practical  reasons,  one  must 
conclude  that  representatives  in  the  Conference  of 
the  future  must  be,  as  they  have  been  in  the  past, 


108  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

representatives  of  the  Governments  of  different 
States.  And  the  method  of  choosing  and  appoint- 
ing such  representatives  must  be  left  in  each  case  to 
the  State  itself.  We  shall  never  get  a  State  like 
Russia  to  come  into  an  international  system  at  all 
if  we  try  to  make  it  a  condition  of  entrance  that 
she  adopt  the  institutions  of  democracy;  and, 
therefore,  though  we  may  have  (as  I  have)  the 
profoundest  belief  in  democratic  control  of  foreign 
policy,  it  would  be  absurd  to  attempt  to  introduce 
that  principle  into  the  international  organization 
itself.  In  our  own  State  we  should  insist  upon 
democratic  control,  and  we  should  take  the  steps 
necessary  to  make,  not  only  the  Government,  but 
its  international  representatives  and  diplomatists, 
the  responsible  servants  of  the  people  instead  of 
irresponsible  servants  of  little  classes  and  castes. 
But  we  have  not  yet  shown  that  we  are  sufficiently 
democratic  to  send  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  or  even  Mr. 
Ramsay  Macdonald  as  representatives  of  the 
British  Empire  to  an  International  Conference,  so 
that  we  hardly  have  the  right  to  object  to  his 
Excellency  Samad  Khan  Momtazos-Saltaneh. 

The  representatives  at  International  Conferences 
must,  then,  remain  representatives  of  the  Govern- 
ments of  independent  States.  Now,  this  fact  is 
commonly  assumed  by  diplomatists  to  have  con- 
sequences which,  if  true,  would  inevitably  cut  at 
the  root  of  any  development  of  Conferences  into 
true  International  Legislatures.  In  such  a  Con- 
ference, it  is  argued,  a  majority  can  in  no  circum- 
stances bind  a  minority,  and  a  decision  can  only  be 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  109 

arrived  at  if  the  Conference  is  unanimous;  and  this 
principle  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  form  or  agree- 
ment, but  is  a  kind  of  natural  law  of  international 
relationship.  But  if  one  examines  the  reasons  with 
which  diplomatists  support  this  view,  one  finds  that 
it  is  really  founded  upon  confusion  of  thought. 
The  clearest  expression  of  the  theory  is  given  in  a 
speech  by  the  President  of  the  second  Hague 
Conference  at  a  meeting  of  one  of  the  committees : 
"The  first  principle,"  he  said,  "of  every  Conference 
is  that  of  unanimity;  it  is  not  an  empty  form,  but 
the  basis  of  every  political  understanding  (toute 
entente  -politique).  In  Parliaments,  majorities  can 
impose  their  will  upon  minorities,  because  the 
members  of  those  assemblies  each  represent  only 
one  and  the  same  nation;  but  in  an  International 
Conference  each  delegation  represents  a  different 
State  of  equal  sovereignty.  No  delegation  has  the 
right  to  accept  a  decision  of  the  majority  which 
would  be  contrary  to  the  will  of  its  Government." 
It  will  be  seen  that  M.  Nelidow's  reasoning  is  vague 
and  confused.  In  the  first  place,  the  members  of  a 
Parliament  do  not  represent  one  and  the  same 
nation,  but  parts  of,  or  parts  of  the  people  of  a 
State.  There  is  no  more  reason  why  Northumber- 
land should  allow  Lancashire  and  Middlesex  to 
impose  their  will  upon  it  than  why  Belgium  should 
allow  Germany  and  England  to  impose  their  will 
upon  it.  Northumberland  sends  a  representative 
to  Parliament  on  the  understanding  that  the 
majority  of  representatives  can  bind  the  minority. 
The  Government  of  Belgium  might  similarly  send 


110  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

a  representative  to  an  International  Conference 
on  the  understanding  that  the  decision  of  a 
majority  of  the  representatives  will  be  binding  on 
the  minority.  Such  an  understanding  or  agree- 
ment in  no  way  destroys  the  independence  or  the 
sovereignty  of  Belgium.  It  is  only  an  agreement 
which  limits  the  freedom  of  action  of  the  State  of 
Belgium.  M.  Nelidow's  argument  would  mean 
that  any  agreement  or  treaty  limiting  the  future 
freedom  of  action  of  a  State  destroyed  the  in- 
dependence or  sovereignty  of  the  State,  which  is 
absurd.  When  a  State  signs  an  arbitration  treaty 
it  agrees  to  accept  the  Court's  decision,  which  may 
or  may  not  be  contrary  to  the  will  of  its  Govern- 
ment, and  it  still  remains  an  independent  sovereign 
State.  Similarly,  a  State  can  sign  a  treaty  by  which 
it  will  agree  to  accept  the  decision  of  a  majority 
of  representatives  in  an  International  Conference, 
even  though  such  decision  be  contrary  to  the  will 
of  its  Government,  and  it,  too,  will  still  remain  an 
independent  sovereign  State.  M.  Nelidow's  con- 
fusion arises  from  the  fact  that  he  regards  the 
delegation  as  accepting  a  decision  contrary  to  the 
will  of  its  Government.  But  it  is  not  the  delega- 
tion which  accepts  the  decision  at  all;  it  is  the 
Government  itself,  which  sends  the  delegation, 
having  agreed  to  accept  the  decision  of  a  majority 
of  the  delegates.  While,  therefore,  agreeing  that 
the  delegations  at  International  Conferences  must 
represent  the  Governments  of  States,  one  need  not 
accept  the  conclusion  that  the  States  cannot  agree 
to  be  bound  by  the  decisions  of  a  majority  of  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  111 

delegations.  The  question  is,  in  what  cases  is  it 
practicable  and  reasonable  for  States  to  agree  to 
be  bound  ?  Chapter  V  showed  that  it  is  impossible, 
in  an  at-present  imperfect  and  unequal  world,  to 
expect  nations  to  bind  themselves  generally  to 
accept  the  decision  of  an  International  Legislature, 
and  also  that  it  is  not  possible  to  draw  a  broad  line 
between  international  and  national  questions.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  to  approach  the  problem  from  a 
different  direction. 

If  one  studies  carefully  the  words  of  people  who 
raise  objections  to  universal  arbitration  and  other 
universal  methods  of  pacific  settlement,  one  finds 
that  their  real  and  ultimate  objection  is  that  by 
submitting  to  such  methods  States  will  lose  their 
two  most  precious  jewels — independence  and  sov- 
ereignty. Now,  independence  and  sovereignty, 
though  they  are  not  easy  to  define,  are  very  real 
things.  They  are  not  only  the  theme  of  publicists 
and  diplomatists,  but  are  closely  connected  with 
the  springs  of  that  dangerous  and  complex  passion 
called  patriotism.  The  existing  international 
system  of  the  world  is  founded  upon  the  theoretical 
sacredness  of  the  independence  and  the  sovereignty 
of  independent  and  sovereign  States.  That  is  why, 
in  my  search  for  an  International  Authority,  I 
have  assumed  that  the  constituents  of  that 
authority  will  be  independent  sovereign  States.  It 
is  certain  that  to-day,  in  this  demi-civilized  world, 
no  State  will  agree  to  come  into  an  international 
system  unless  its  independence  and  sovereignty 
are  safeguarded;  but — and  this  is  the  important 


112  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

point — it  is  just  as  certain  that  no  one  would 
object  to  his  country  entering  such  a  system 
provided  that  he  was  absolutely  convinced  that  its 
independence  and  sovereignty  could  not  thereby 
be  impaired. 

We  have,  in  fact,  reached  in  these  characteristics 
those  fundamental  things  which  to-day  convert  48 
mixed  and  mongrel  populations  into  48  distinct 
nations.  Translated  into  emotions,  or  the  ob- 
jects of  emotions,  they  become  the  stuff  out  of 
which  springs  the  flame  of  patriotism.  August, 
1914,  showed  clearly  that  modern  Europe  could 
not  be  made  to  fight  at  all  unless  it  was  made  to 
believe  in  every  hill  and  valley  of  it  that  it  was 
fighting  for  national  existence.  And  national 
existence  is  only  the  politician's  or  the  journalist's 
cliche  answering  to  the  lawyer's  independence  and 
sovereignty. 

Again,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  with  some 
vague  idea  that  they  are  protecting  these  char- 
acteristics of  States,  diplomatists  have  inserted  the 
"vital  interests  and  honor"  clause  in  arbitration 
treaties.  "If  we  look  closely,"  writes  Sir  Thomas 
Barclay,*  "into  the  meaning  of  a  vital  interest, 
we  can  only  find,  as  typical  instances,  cases  in 
which  the  independence  of  the  State  itself,  its  own 
territorial  integrity,  or  a  deliberate  breach  in  the 
established  usage  of  nations  of  fundamental  im- 
portance are  involved."  And  later  he  gives  the 
still  more  explicit  and  comprehensive  definition: 


'The  Problems  of  International  Practice  and  Diplomacy." 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  113 

"A  State's  territorial  independence  or  integrity, 
its  freedom  to  determine  its  own  mode  of  govern- 
ment, legislation  and  institutions,  its  power  to 
receive  political  refugees  from  other  countries,  its 
right  to  grant  absolute  freedom  of  thought,  and 
of  its  expression  as  regards  matters  beyond  its 
boundaries,  etc."  He  therefore  makes  the  very 
valuable  and  interesting  suggestion  that,  instead 
of  the  clause  reserving  matters  of  vital  interest 
and  honor,  there  should  be  inserted  in  arbitration 
treaties  a  clause  reserving  matters  affecting  "  the  in- 
dependence," "territorial  integrity,"  and  "the  inter- 
nal laws  and  institutions  "  of  the  contracting  States. 
Now,  under  the  system  of  obligatory  arbitration 
recommended  in  Chapter  VI  such  a  reservation  is 
unnecessary.  A  reference  to  a  tribunal  is  only 
obligatory  where  the  international  dispute  can  be 
decided  by  interpreting  an  international  contract 
or  law.  The  whole  of  International  Law  has  been 
built  up  about  the  principles  of  independence, 
integrity,  and  sovereignty  of  States.  They  are, 
therefore,  absolutely  protected  by  the  judicial 
system  itself,  provided  that  it  is  strictly  limited  to 
the  questions  denned  in  Chapter  VI.  For  instance, 
we  feel  impelled  to  protect  the  territorial  integrity 
of  our  State,  and  we  mean  by  that  the  integrity  of 
the  territory  which  legally  belongs  to  our  State. 
A  tribunal  which  can  only  take  cognizance  of  the 
law  must  protect,  and  cannot  impair,  this  territorial 
integrity.  It  is  only  by  extra-legal  means,  such  as 
the  arbitrament  of  arms,  that  an  Alsace-Lorraine 
can  be  lost  or  gained. 


114  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

But,  though  this  is  true  of  our  judicial  tribunal, 
it  is  not  true  of  an  International  Legislature.  The 
International  Conference,  with  its  right  to  decide 
in  non-legal  questions,  does  not  interpret,  it  makes 
International  Law.  If  its  competence  and  scope 
were  unlimited,  independence  and  territory  and 
the  mysterious  sovereignty  of  nations  might 
theoretically  be  lost  in  the  council  chamber, 
just  as  in  the  past  they  have  been  lost  upon  the 
battlefield.  Here,  then,  for  the  present,  we  can 
draw  the  true  and  the  rational  line  between  na- 
tionalism and  internationalism.  Every  independ- 
ent sovereign  State  must  affirm  the  right  of 
the  nations  collectively  to  settle  questions  and  to 
make  law,  except  in  three  cases;  and  every  such 
State  can  send  its  delegation  to  a  Conference  at 
which  the  majority  shall  bind  the  minority,  except 
in  three  cases.  Those  three  cases  are:  Where  the 
law  or  the  decision  would  affect  the  independence, 
or  the  territorial  integrity  of  the  State,  or  would 
require  an  alteration  in  the  internal  laws  of  the 
State. 

And  now  it  is  possible  to  see  how  the  Conference 
can  develop  logically  and  at  the  same  time,  without 
cutting  across  the  passions  and  prejudices  of 
human  beings,  into  a  real  organ  of  an  International 
Authority.  These  occasional  and  tentative  as- 
semblies of  national  representatives  must  become 
regular  and  permanent.  They  will  have  the  right 
and  the  power  to  make  general  rules  of  inter- 
national conduct,  and  to  consider  and  pronounce 
decisions  upon  all  differences  and  disputes  which 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  115 

are  not  referred  to  a  judicial  tribunal.  The  rule 
that  every  dispute  in  which  negotiation  has  failed 
must  come  before  either  a  tribunal  or  a  Conference 
will  be  the  pivot  of  the  international  system,  and 
this  co-ordination  of  machinery  will  be  the  founda- 
tion of  international  organization.  But,  since  the 
units  of  the  International  Authority  are  in- 
dependent sovereign  States,  they  alone  are  masters, 
and  must  retain  that  mastership  of  their  own  in- 
dependence and  sovereignty.  They  can,  therefore, 
without  fear  of  endangering  their  "vital  interests" 
or  "national  honor,"  agree  to  be  bound  by  the 
decisions  of  such  Conferences,  and  to  maintain  the 
right  of  the  majority  to  bind  the  minority  only 
where  the  decision  would  not  affect  the  independ- 
ence, or  territorial  integrity,  or  would  not  require 
an  alteration  in  the  internal  laws  of  the  State. 

"And  what  about  those  sanctions?"  the  publicist 
will  most  undoubtedly  be  asking.  This  un- 
pleasant and  inappropriate  word  has  a  peculiar 
fascination  for  him.  The  whole  question  of  sanc- 
tions is  of  theoretical  rather  than  practical  in- 
terest. Where  there  is  power  to  enforce  a  right  or 
an  obligation,  little  in  practice  is  gained  by  a  formal 
declaration  of  the  right  to  exercise  the  power.  If 
the  International  Authority,  the  Society  of  Na- 
tions, has  the  power  to  compel  a  member  to 
comply  with  its  obligations,  and  if  it  has  the  will 
to  do  so,  a  way  in  which  to  exercise  the  power  will 
be  found.  The  important  point  is  that  the  rights 
should  be  clearly  defined  and  the  obligations  ex- 
plicitly acknowledged.  Now,  one  can  set  down  as 


116  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

follows  the  international  rights  and  obligations 
which  would  be  defined  and  acknowledged  under 
the  proposed  system: 

(1)  The  obligation  to  refer  all  disputes  and  differ- 
ences not  settled  by  negotiation  either  to  a  tribunal 
or  to  a  Conference. 

(2)  The  obligation  in  certain  defined  disputes 
and    differences,*    referred    to    a    Conference,    to 
accept  and  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  majority 
of  the  representatives. 

(3)  The  obligation  to  accept  and  abide  by  the 
judgment  of  a  tribunal. 

(4)  The  obligation  of  a  State  to  abide  by  every 
general  rule  of  law  and  every  decision  made  by  a 
Conference  and  agreed  to  or  ratified  by  that  State. 

(5)  The  obligation  to  abide  by  certain  defined 
general  rules  of  law*  made  by  a  majority  of  the 
representatives  in  a  Conference. 

It  might  no  doubt  prove  to  be  an  amusing  task 
to  devise  methods  of  putting  into  the  hands  of  the 
International  Authority  the  power  of  compelling 
its  members  to  comply  with  these  obligations.  It 
would  be  quite  possible  upon  paper  to  build  up 
your  divisions  or  squadrons  of  an  armed  inter- 
national force  without  going  quite  as  far  as  the 
gentleman  who  has  already  proposed  an  inter- 
national fleet  with  its  base  on  the  West  Coast  of 
Africa  and  its  general  staff  upon  the  land-locked 
lakes  of  Switzerland.  But  it  is  hardly  practical, 

*  /.  e.,  those  which  would  not  affect  the  independence,  or  the  territorial 
integrity,  or  which  would  not  require  an  alteration  in  the  internal  laws  of 
a  State. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  117 

in  the  present  condition  of  the  world,  to  discuss  the 
possibility  of  anything  like  a  permanent  inter- 
national police  force.  The  only  practical  question 
is  whether,  given  these  obligations,  the  States  of 
the  world  can  agree  beforehand  upon  the  methods 
to  be  adopted  to  enforce  compliance  with  them. 
Those  methods  may  be  of  two  kinds:  They  may 
consist  in  a  use  of  the  combined  military  and  naval 
forces  of  individual  States,  or  in  those  measures 
which  are  adopted  in  wars  between  States  of 
bringing  economic  and  social  pressure  to  bear  upon 
the  population  of  States.  Now,  clearly,  in  every 
particular  case  it  would  depend  among  other  things 
upon  the  nature  of  the  obligation  broken  whether 
it  was  possible  or  politic  to  use  this  or  that  method 
of  enforcing  it.  We  are  a  very  long  way  from  the 
time  when  it  will  be  possible  to  draw  up  beforehand 
a  list  of  pains  and  penalties  for  all  imaginable  inter- 
national delinquencies.  We  are  only  just  feeling 
about  for  an  International  Authority,  and  all  that 
we  can  hope  for  at  this  stage  is  that  the  nations  will 
agree  upon  and  declare  what  methods  the  Au- 
thority has  the  right  to  use  in  order  to  enforce 
those  fundamental  obligations  upon  which  this 
system  of  international  society  rests. 

The  five  obligations  given  above  are  the  funda- 
mental obligations  upon  which  the  International 
Authority  outlined  in  this  chapter  would  rest. 
But  one  has  only  to  read  them  to  see  that  they  are 
not  all  equally  important,  so  far  as  the  preservation 
of  the  peace  of  the  world  is  concerned.  A  nation 
might,  therefore,  reasonably  agree  to  declare  the 


118  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

right  of  the  Authority  to  use  force  in  order  to  en- 
force compliance  with,  say,  the  first,  the  third, 
and  the  fourth  obligations,  but  refuse  to  do  so  in 
the  case  of  the  second  and  the  fifth.  These  are, 
in  fact,  questions  of  detail,  and  can  only  really  be 
settled  when  the  representatives  of  Siam  and 
Haiti  are  once  again  sitting  face  to  face  about  the 
Conference  table  with  the  representatives  of  such 
other  States  as  the  present  system  of  regulating 
international  affairs  shall  have  left  in  existence. 
There  is,  however,  one  right  so  fundamental  that, 
unless  it  is  affirmed  and  enforced,  one  may  con- 
clude beforehand  that  the  international  organiza- 
tion will  accomplish  nothing  towards  preventing 
war.  That  right  is  the  right  of  the  nations  to 
insist  upon  the  use  of  the  pacific  machinery  of  inter- 
national organization  before  any  warlike  operation 
or  preparation  by  any  individual  State.  Thus  our 
International  Authority  will  vanish  into  the  thin 
air  of  theory  or  Utopia,  unless  the  nations  which 
compose  it  are  agreed  to  enforce,  and  actually 
enforce,  by  every  means  in  their  power  the  obliga- 
tion of  each  individual  State  to  refer  a  dispute  or 
difference  to  tribunal  or  Conference  before  resorting 
to  force  of  arms. 

There  remains  one  other  question  to  trouble 
anyone  who  is  considering  as  a  practical  problem 
of  to-day  the  construction  of  some  International 
Authority.  It  is  the  problem,  already  touched 
upon  in  Chapter  VI,  of  the  inequality  of  equal 
independent  sovereign  States.  In  the  society  of 
States,  one  has  at  one  end  the  British  Empire,  with 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  119 

a  population  of  435,000,000  and  an  area  of  13,- 
000,000  square  miles;  at  the  other,  Luxemburg, 
with  a  population  of  260,000  and  an  area  of  1,000 
square  miles.  And  yet  in  that  society  and  in  its 
most  fully  developed  organ  of  the  past,  the  Hague 
Conference,  "none  is  afore  or  after  other;  none  is 
greater  or  less  than  another."  The  practical 
result  of  insisting  upon  this  mystic  equality  of 
things  radically  unequal,  of  trying  to  make 
thousands  balance  millions  in  the  international 
scales,  has  already  been  noticed.  It  made  a  fair 
representation  of  international  interests  impossible, 
and  therefore  a  reasonable  settlement  of  any 
question  in  which  those  interests  were  really  in- 
volved became  equally  impossible. 

But  the  difficulty  becomes  far  more  obvious  in 
any  system  or  organization  in  which  the  principle 
of  a  majority  binding  a  minority  is  recognized. 
The  eight  Great  Powers  at  an  International  Con- 
ference speak  for,  roughly,  three-quarters  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  world.  If  the  principle  of  the 
absolute  equality  of  independent  States,  set  up  by 
the  smaller 'nations  at  The  Hague,  were  applied  to  a 
Conference  in  which  the  rights  of  a  majority  to 
bind  a  minority  were  admitted,  then  one-quarter 
of  the  earth  will  be  given  five  times  greater  voting 
power  than  the  other  three-quarters.  Such  a 
system  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  an  absurdity,  and 
anyone,  by  the  exercise  of  a  little  common  sense, 
will  see  that  the  United  States  of  America,  for 
instance,  will  never  submit  its  interests  to  a  body  in 
which  its  voting  power  is  no  greater  than  that  of 


120  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

any  of  the  other  twenty  States  of  the  American 
Continent.  And  it  is  not,  of  course,  mere  size  or 
power  that  has  to  be  considered,  but  the  whole 
network  of  individaul  and  racial  qualities  from 
which  spring  the  political,  commercial  and  artistic 
activities  of  nations.  States  undoubtedly  do 
stand  upon  different  levels  of  civilization,  however 
much  we  may  disagree  as  to  which  are  the  high 
and  which  the  low  levels.  The  French  Republic 
moves  and  troubles  the  world  more,  impinges 
more  upon  its  surface,  and  stirs  its  depths  more 
deeply  than  that  Republic  in  the  West  of  which 
Jose  Bordas  is  President,  or  even  than  that  other 
in  the  East  with  its  four  hundred  millions  ruled 
over  by  President  Yuan  Shih-Kai.  It  will  continue 
to  do  so  as  long  as  a  Frenchman  remains  a  French- 
man, a  Dominican  a  Dominican,  and  a  Chinaman 
a  Chinaman.  It  is  through  not  recognizing  and 
providing  for  such  hard,  unchangeable  facts  that  a 
stable  international  society  becomes  impossible, 
for  you  can  no  more  expel  nature  by  a  diplomatic 
or  legal  fiction  than  by  a  fork. 

If,  then,  the  world  is  ever  to  organize  itself  for 
the  peaceful  regulation  of  international  affairs, 
that  organization  must  provide  for  the  essential 
inequality  of  States.  If  such  inequality  is  not 
reflected  in  the  pacific  machinery,  it  will  make 
itself  felt  in  war,  while  the  machinery  will  be  left 
to  rust  unused.  Common  sense,  which  is  always 
practical  and  conservative,  will  say  at  once:  "Yes, 
and  that's  why  you'll  never  be  able  to  do  without 
war.  You'll  never  in  practice  be  able  to  weight 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  121 

France  against  Dominica,  China  against  Luxem- 
burg, and  draw  up  a  table  of  international  weights 
with  a  voting  power  assigned  to  each  State  accord- 
ing to  its  weight  in  international  society."  The 
answer  to  this  objection  is  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
such  a  table  has  already  been  drawn  up,  not  by  a 
theorist  in  his  study,  but  by  "practical"  diplo- 
matists themselves  at  the  Hague  Conference.  The 
table  was  constructed  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
inequality  of  representation  upon  the  International 
Prize  Court,  the  representation  being  proportioned 
to  the  population,  commerce,  maritime  interests, 
etc.,  of  the  various  States.  The  differences  are 
therefore  not  assigned  as  differences  of  voting 
power,  because  the  question  of  voting  power  did 
not  arise;  but  it  is  possible,  and  may  be  of  interest, 
to  show  how  the  differences  of  representation 
assigned  by  the  diplomatists  to  the  States  of  the 
world  can  be  translated  into  differences  of  voting 
power.  It  is  not  suggested  that  the  table  is,  as  it 
stands,  suitable  for  the  purposes  of  an  International 
Legislature,  because  where  the  question  was  the 
constitution,  not  of  a  Conference,  but  a  Prize 
Court,  a  special  weight  was  given  to  particular 
characteristics  of  States — e.  g.,  maritime  interests.* 
It  only  shows  that  it  is  possible  to  make  such  a 
list  for  practical  purposes. 

In  the  Convention  relative  to  the  Establishment 
of  an  International  Prize  Court  adopted  by  the 
Second  Hague  Conference,  the  method  of  consti- 

*  This  accounts  for  the  unduly  high  position  in  the  list  of  such  States  as 
Norway. 

10 


122  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

tuting  the  Court  is  really  that  recommended  by  the 
Committee  for  the  Judicial  Arbitration  Court,  and 
described  briefly,  in  Chapter  VI.  Its  object  is  to 
allow  representation  on  the  Court  to  be  propor- 
tioned to  population,  commercial  interests,  etc.,  of 
the  different  States.  The  judges  are  appointed  for 
six  years.  This  period  of  six  years  is  then  divided 
into  six  periods  of  one  year  each.  The  eight  Great 
Powers  are  given  absolute  equality  of  representa- 
tion, the  judges  appointed  by  them  sitting  for  the 
whole  period  of  six  years.  But  the  judges  and 
deputy  judges  of  the  other  Powers  sit  by  rota,  as 
shown  in  an  elaborate  table  annexed  to  the  Con- 
vention. Their  representation  varies  from  a 
deputy  judge  in  one  of  the  six  periods  up  to  a 
judge  and  a  deputy  judge  in  four  of  the  six  periods. 

Representation         Equivalent 
on  Prize  Court.      Voting  Power. 
Austria,    the    British    Empire,    France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Japan,  Russia,  the 

U.  S.  A Whole  period 18  votes  each 

Spain 4  judges,  4  deputy     12  votes  each 

judges 

The  Netherlands 3  judges,  3  deputy      9  votes  each 

judges 

Belgium,  China,  Denmark,  Greece,  Nor- 
way, Portugal,  Roumania,  Sweden, 

Turkey 2  judges,  2  deputy      6  votes  each 

judges 

Argentine,  Brazil,  Chile,  Mexico 2  judges  4  votes  each 

Switzerland,  Bulgaria,  Persia I  judge,  I  deputy      3  votes  each 

judge 
Colombia,  Peru,  Serbia,  Siam,  Uruguay, 

Venezuela I  judge  2  votes  each 

Bolivia,  Costa  Rica,  Cuba,  Santo  Do- 
mingo, Ecuador,  Guatemala,  Haiti, 
Honduras,  Nicaragua,  Panama,  Para- 
guay, Salvador,  Luxemburg,  Monte- 
negro   i  deputy  judge ...  I  vote  each '. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  123 

Now,  if  one  takes  a  deputy  judge  sitting  for  one  of 
the  six  periods  as  the  unit  of  representation  power, 
and  a  judge  sitting  for  one  of  the  six  periods  as  two 
units  of  representation  power,  it  is  possible  to 
translate  into  voting  power  the  variations  of  rep- 
resentation power  assigned  to  the  nations  of  the 
world  by  the  diplomatists  who  framed  the  Prize 
Court  Convention.  The  table  works  out  as 
shown  on  the  opposite  page. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONCLUSIONS 

IN  the  preceding  pages  I  have  tried  to  sketch 
in  briefest  outline  a  possible  structure  for  an 
International  Authority.  That  structure  is  by 
no  means  ideal;  it  is  full  of  ugly  corners,  and  often 
degenerates  into  mere  rickety  and  dangerous 
scaffolding  which  may  or  may  not  betoken  a  future 
building  in  more  solid  and  more  beautiful  material. 
The  result  is  curiously  unsatisfactory  and  un- 
sightly to  anyone  who  desires  ardently  to  see  a 
world  ruled  by  order  and  reason.  That,  one  may 
be  bold  to  claim,  is  a  distinct  merit.  Man  in 
national  or  international  masses  is  not  yet  an 
orderly  or  a  reasonable  animal.  He  is  an  animal 
of  passion  and  prejudice.  Any  system,  or  organiza- 
tion, or  machinery  for  governing  his  affairs  must, 
if  it  is  to  be  accepted  by  him,  allow  play  to  these 
passions  and  prejudices.  It  is  no  good  building 
him  a  brand  new,  beautiful,  international  institu- 
tion. The  human  institutions  really  used  by  him 
are  secreted  by  him  much  in  the  same  way  as  some 
small  repulsive  insects  secrete  a  kind  of  building 
around  themselves.  And  the  only  way  of  in- 
fluencing him  is  by  tickling  him  to  induce  a  more 
copious  secretion  on  one  side  than  on  another,  just 
as  ants  for  this  purpose  tickle  their  cow-like 

124 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  125 

aphides  with  their  antennae.  There  would  be  no 
grounds  for  deploring  the  uselessness  of  human 
effort  if,  by  a  judicious  process  of  intellectual  and 
emotional  tickling,  human  beings  could  be  induced 
to  divert  some  of  the  energies  which  they  devote 
to  the  construction  of  armies  and  armaments  to 
the  construction  of  this  feeble  and  faulty  system  of 
pacific  machinery.  It  will,  however,  be  useful  to 
point  out  clearly  to  ourselves  in  what  respects 
such  a  system  falls  short  of  our  hopes  and  desires, 
and  I  propose,  therefore,  to  recapitulate  shortly  the 
results  arrived  at,  and  to  bring  out  at  the  same  time 
in  what  respects  they  would,  and  in  what  respects 
they  would  not,  make  for  the  prevention  of  war. 

Our  international  system  takes,  just  as  the 
present  system  does,  the  independent  sovereign 
State  as  its  unit.  It  admits  that,  within  the  "sphere 
of  its  independence  and  sovereignty,  every  State 
must  remain  absolute  master  of  its  own  destiny. 
It  receives  within  itself,  therefore,  a  medley  of 
dangerous  national  systems,  under  which  nation- 
alities are  bound  together  by  all  kinds  and  varieties 
of  stupid  and  irrational  and  unjust  bonds.  It  does 
not  attempt  to  deal  at  their  roots  with  all  those 
causes  from  which,  during  the  last  hundred  years, 
the  great  wars  have  sprung,  the  administrative, 
political,  and  economic  relationships  of  States.  It 
is  a  system  which  must  fall  far  short  of  any  sane 
man's  hopes  and  desires.  It  falls  far  short  of  a 
cosmopolitan  system  or  a  world  State.  But  cos- 
mopolitanism or  a  world  State  presupposes  that 
the  world  is  convinced  of  the  truth — namely,  that 


126  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  interests  of  France  do  not  necessarily  conflict 
with  the  interests  of  Germany  any  more  than  those 
of  Paris  do  with  those  of  Bordeaux,  and  that  the 
violent  but  narrow  passions  that  pass  under  the 
name  of  patriotism  are  not  the  noblest  forms  of 
human  and  social  emotions.  The  world,  or  the 
people  who,  unfortunately,  have  most  to  say  in 
governing  the  world,  believe  no  such  thing,  and 
will  not  believe  it  when  the  representatives  of 
States  meet  again  to  decide  how  to  fill  up  the 
graves  which  they  helped  to  dig  in  Europe. 

We  take  things,  therefore,  as  we  find  them,  how- 
ever melancholy  and  dangerous  they  may  be. 
The  cosmopolitan  or  International  State  implies  a 
cosmopolitan  or  international  patriotism;  it  is, 
therefore,  useless  at  present  to  disturb  its  long 
re.st  upon  the  dusty  shelf  reserved  in  libraries  for 
Utopias.  But  that  does  not  mean  that  there  are 
no  practical  steps  which  can  be  taken  for  prevent- 
ing war  by  improving  the  machinery  of  inter- 
national relationship.  We  can  do  something  by 
providing  that  the  complications  of  modern  ex- 
istence do  not,  merely  because  they  are  compli- 
cated, tie  us  into  inextricable  international  knots, 
and  still  more  by  developing  and  extending  that 
international  machinery  which  has  in  the  past 
encouraged  and  given  scope  to  those  factors  in 
human  society  which  have  tended  to  the  drawing 
together  of  nations  and  the  pacific  settlement  of 
international  disputes. 

Now,  there  are  two  such  factors  of  the  greatest 
importance.  One  is  the  growth  of  International 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  127 

Law  and  of  the  principle  that  the  relations  of 
States  shall  be  regulated  by  general  rules  of  con- 
duct. Society,  the  whole  system  of  European 
civilization,  all  that  we  are  accustomed  to  regard 
as  good  in  our  way  of  life,  our  hopes  and  our 
ideals,  have  grown  about  and  depend  upon  the 
governing  of  human  relationship  by  law  and 
general  rules  of  morality.  The  last  two  years 
have  shown  that  it  would  be  as  easy  to  destroy 
that  civilization  by  attempting  to  regulate  interna- 
tional relationship  merely  by  erratic  violence  and 
brute  force  as  it  would  be  within  a  State  to  destroy 
society  by  abandoning  it  to  lawlessness.  We  have,  in 
fact,  reached  the  point  in  the  history  at  least  of 
Europe  where  continued  progress  depends  upon  the 
growth  of  International  Law  and  morality  as  cer- 
tainly as  upon  the  policeman  in  Piccadilly  Circus  and 
all  that  he  stands  for.  The  binding  force  of  law 
where  law  exists,  and  the  binding  force  of  con- 
tracts where  contracts  exist,  are  the  foundations 
of  a  stable  system  of  international  relationship. 
But  the  last  1,915  years  seem  to  show  that  such  a 
system  is  not  going  to  spring  into  sudden  and  full- 
blown existence  by  a  special  act  of  creation  on  the 
part  of  the  Deity.  It  requires  for  its  operation 
in  this  complex  world  humanly  devised  and  con- 
sciously devised  machinery.  The  conception  of 
an  International  Authority,  sketched  in  these 
chapters,  simply  recognizes  these  facts.  It  aims 
only  at  providing  the  machinery  without  which 
the  system  will  remain  "in  the  air."  It  presumes 
merely  that  nations  are  to  be  bound  by  law  where 


128  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

law  exists,  by  contracts  where  contracts  exist,  by 
the  bare  minimum  of  international  good  faith.  It 
would  apply  legal  machinery  only  to  legal  inter- 
national differences,  to  those  disputes  which  are 
concerned  with  rules  of  law  and  conduct  to  which 
the  disputing  nations  have  themselves  subscribed, 
and  with  contracts  to  which  they  have  themselves 
agreed.  It  proposes,  therefore,  that  the  reference 
of  such  legal  differences  and  disputes  for  decision 
to  a  legal  tribunal  should  be  compulsory.  Again, 
by  extending  and  elaborating  International  Con- 
ferences, it  would  provide  machinery  for  making 
International  Law  of  wider  application  and  of 
greater  precision.  On  the  one  side  it  would 
strengthen  the  obligation,  on  the  other  side  extend 
the  range,  of  International  Law. 

The  other  factor  is  the  growth  of  the  principle 
which  denies  the  right  of  any  one  nation,  and 
asserts  the  right  of  the  nations  collectively,  to 
settle  questions  which  imperil  the  peace  of  the 
world.  The  world  is  so  closely  knit  together  now 
that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  a  nation  to  run 
amok  on  one  frontier  while  her  neighbor  on  the 
other  is  hardly  aware  of  it.  We  are  so  linked  to 
our  neighbors  by  the  gold  and  silver  wires  of 
commerce  and  finance — not  to  speak  of  telegraph 
wires  and  steel  rails — that  a  breeze  between  the 
Foreign  Offices  of  Monrovia  and  Adis  Ababa  would 
be  felt  the  same  day  in  every  Foreign  Office  from 
Pekin  to  Washington,  and  every  war  threatens  to 
become  a  world  war.  And  the  closer  the  inter- 
connections of  international  life  become,  the  more 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  129 

necessary  becomes  this  principle  to  save  internation- 
al society  from  dissolution.  And  one  must  face  the 
fact  that  what  stands  in  the  way  of  the  acceptance 
of  this  principle  in  the  regulation  of  international 
affairs  is  the  diplomatic,  governmental  and,  to  a 
less  extent,  popular  view  of  the  independence  and 
sovereignty  of  States. 

It  is  necessary  sometimes  to  accept  the  universe 
as  a  fact,  to  make  the  best  even  of  a  divine  bad 
job.  Such  action  in  this  case  would  seem  to  con- 
sist in  devising  machinery  which  would  give  the 
fullest  scope  for  extending  this  principle  without 
infringing  the  independence  and  sovereignty  of 
States.  That  is  the  aim  of  the  system  sketched 
in  these  chapters.  It  proposes  to  recognize  the 
right  of  the  nations,  collectively  at  least,  to  dis- 
cuss and  express  an  opinion  upon  any  and  every 
question  before  any  one  nation  independently 
takes  action  to  settle  such  a  question  by  force  of 
arms.  It  proposes,  therefore,  that  the  reference 
of  non-legal  differences  and  disputes  to  an  Inter- 
national Conference  shall  be  compulsory.  But, 
because  it  has  to  provide  for  the  stubborn  fact  of 
the  independence  and  sovereignty  of  States,  it 
allows  the  principle  full  force  only  in  those  ques- 
tions which  do  not  affect  independence  and 
sovereignty.  It  therefore  proposes  that  the  de- 
cision would  not  affect  a  State's  independence, 
integrity,  or  the  control  of  its  internal  affairs. 

One  must  meet  the  chorus  of  practical  men  and 
their  sceptical  criticism:  "You're  never  going  to 
make  war  impossible  like  that  by  means  of  spider 


130  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

webs.  You're  never  going  to  prevent  war  by 
machinery  of  tribunals  and  Conferences.  Even  if 
the  world  had  agreed  to  this  system  or  machinery, 
you  can't  be  so  simple  as  to  believe  that  Germany 
and  Austria,  who  have  torn  up  every  scrap  of 
paper  which  bound  them,  would  have  paid  any 
attention  to  it  in  July,  1914."  At  the  cost  of  repeti- 
tion, this  criticism  requires  an  answer.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  impossible  to  make  war  impossible. 
The  Ulster  question  shows  that  in  no  quarter  of 
the  globe  has  human  folly  been  sufficiently  ex- 
orcized to  make  even  civil  war  impossible.  None 
the  less,  history  proves  that  human  institutions 
and  machinery  for  government  by  restraining  po- 
litical folly,  and  giving  scope  to  political  wisdom, 
can  make,  and  have  made,  civil  war  improbable. 
Our  aim  is  not  to  compass  the  impossibility  of 
war,  but  merely  to  increase  its  improbability. 

And  so  with  July,  1914.  Machinery  for  settling 
disputes  co-ordinated  in  the  form  of  an  Inter- 
national Authority  would  have  made  war  less 
probable.  It  is  a  very  good  case  to  consider,  be- 
cause the  strain  would  have  come  upon  the  very 
weakest  link  in  the  system  proposed  in  these 
chapters.  The  dispute  between  Austria  and  Serbia 
was  not  a  legal  dispute,  and  it  did  affect  the  inde- 
pendence and  sovereignty  of  a  State.  Under  our 
system,  all  that  would  have  been  required  was  that 
the  question  should  be  referred  to  a  Conference 
for  examination  and  report.  Austria  would  not 
have  been  bound  by  the  decision  of  that  Confer- 
ence, and  would  have  been  legally  and  morally 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  131 

free  to  bombard  Belgrade  as  soon  as  the  Confer- 
ence had  expressed  its  opinion. 

Would  Austria  have  waited  for  a  Conference? 
If  the  system  had  been  instituted  in  June,  almost 
certainly  not.  But  suppose  the  system  had  been 
working  ten  years,  that  several  disputes  had  been 
referred  automatically  to  and  settled  by  tribunal 
or  Conference?  We  should  have  had  one  more 
and  a  serious  obstacle  in  the  path  of  war  lords;  we 
should  have  made — and  that  is  all  we  can  make — 
war  more  improbable,  less  "inevitable."  The 
very  people  who  are  most  insistent  that  war  was 
"inevitable"  in  July,  1914,  forget  that  they  have 
asserted  the  truth — namely,  that  there  would  have 
been  no  war  if  Germany  had  realized  that  the 
breaking  of  her  treaty  about  Belgium  would  bring 
in  Great  Britain.  If  we  are  really  to  consider  that 
kind  of  inevitableness  in  human  affairs,  the  only 
rational  action  is  complete  quiescence  and  fatalism. 
The  happening  of  every  event  was  inevitable  after 
it  had  happened.  If  a  man  got  drunk  yesterday, 
it  was  in  this  sense  inevitable  that  he  got  drunk, 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  we  cannot  make  it 
more  difficult  for  him  to  get  drunk  by  closing  the 
public-houses  to-morrow. 

People  are  always  prophesying  international  bad 
faith  and  dishonesty.  When  their  words  come 
true  they  shout,  "I  told  you  so";  but,  like  Old 
Moore  and  other  prophets,  they  forget  and  are 
silent  about  the  innumerable  cases  in  which  they 
turned  out  to  be  wrong.  After  the  Russo-Japan- 
ese war  it  was  commonly  said  that  no  nation 


132  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

would  ever  again  conform  to  the  international 
obligation  of  declaring  war  formally.  The  advan- 
tage of  catching  your  opponent  off  his  guard  and 
by  the  throat  before  he  is  ready  for  you  is  so  great 
under  modern  conditions,  it  was  said,  that  a  sud- 
den undeclared  war  is  "inevitable."  The  patriotic 
Briton  was  exhorted  to  live  in  daily  terror  of  going 
to  sleep  in  profound  peace  and  waking  up  next 
morning  to  find  his  Fleet  at  the  bottom  of  the 
North  Sea.  In  the  British  Empire,  France,  Russia, 
Japan,  Italy,  Serbia  and  Montenegro,  it  is  a  fact 
that  Germany  and  Austria  deliberately  planned 
the  war  at  the  time  and  under  circumstances  most 
favorable  to  those  two  Powers;  in  Germany  and 
Austria,  it  is  a  fact  that  Great  Britain,  France  and 
Russia  planned  the  war  at  the  time  and  under  cir- 
cumstances most  favorable  to  the  Triple  Entente. 
And  yet  in  no  case  did  any  of  these  Powers  omit 
to  comply  with  an  international  obligation,  a 
formal  declaration  of  war,  an  obligation  which  de- 
prived them  of  the  enormous  advantage  of  sudden 
warlike  action. 

This  system,  if  it  had  been  in  existence  for,  say, 
ten  years  before  1914,  would  have  been  an  addi- 
tional and  a  serious  obstacle  to  war  in  July,  1914.  It 
would  have  helped  those  people  who  wanted  peace, 
and  would  have  hindered  those  people  who  wanted 
war.  That  is  the  function,  and  no  negligible 
function,  of  pacific  machinery.  It  would  have 
made  an  immediate  war  improbable  and  a  Con- 
ference probable.  And  it  is  almost  certain  that 
if  a  Conference  had  taken  place  there  would  have 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  133 

been  no  war,  even  though  no  nation  was  bound 
by  the  decision  of  the  Conference.  War  between 
two  nations  under  modern  conditions  is  impos- 
sible unless  you  get  a  large  number  of  people  in 
each  nation  excited  and  afraid.  Now,  people  can 
only  be  made  excited  and  afraid  in  large  masses 
by  springing  something  on  them  suddenly  which 
they  do  not  altogether  understand.  War-mongers 
know  this  well  enough  in  every  country.  That  is 
the  real  objection  to  secret  diplomacy.  It  enables 
the  war-mongers  to  work  up  excitement  and  fear. 
They  allow  it  only  to  be  known  that  a  crisis  has 
occurred,  "negotiations  are  proceeding,  but  a 
deadlock  is  feared."  Nobody  knows  what  is  hap- 
pening, what  the  real  question  is,  what  the  worst 
is  to  be  feared.  "Panic  on  the  Stock  Exchange" 
is  the  inevitable  newspaper  placard  in  our  streets 
— a  little  straw  which  shows  how  the  psychological 
wind  must  blow  in  a  nation  before  it  can  be  in- 
duced to  go  to  war.  Suddenly  we  are  told  that 
the  crisis  is  acute.  Into  this  atmosphere  of  fear, 
ignorance,  doubt,  excitement,  a  complicated  inter- 
national question  is  flung  to  us  in  the  speech  of  a 
politician  which  gives  us  the  minimum  of  evidence 
and  explanation  and  the  maximum  of  patriotic  and 
fear-inspiring  cliches.  Naturally,  when  that  point 
is  reached,  ninety-nine  people  out  of  every  hundred 
will  take  the  lead  given  by  "the  people  in  author- 
ity." Peace  and  war  no  longer  depend  upon  find- 
ing a  reasonable  settlement  in  a  dispute,  but  upon 
whether  in  some  country  those  in  authority  do  or 
do  not  want  war. 


134  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Now,  a  Conference  works  in  two  ways  upon  the 
psychology  of  nations  to  counteract  these  ten- 
dencies. In  the  first  place,  it  prevents  excitement 
by  being  so  intolerably  dull.  When  a  score  of 
diplomatic  gentlemen  have  been  sitting  round  a 
green  baize  table  discussing  an  international  ques- 
tion for  a  fortnight,  they  have  killed  all  interest  in 
that  question  for  at  least  a  year.  The  Algeciras 
Conference  killed  the  Morocco  question  in  this 
way.  Before  it  met,  Germany  and  France  were 
boiling  with  excitement;  long  before  it  finished  its 
work,  everyone  was  so  bored  with  it  that  it  was 
quite  impossible  to  use  Morocco  as  a  casus  belli 
for  five  years.  Even  a  Serbian  or  a  German  would 
lose  interest  in  a  question  of  Serbian  and  German 
nationality  if  he  saw  it  discussed  by  diplomatists 
at  a  Conference,  and  not  one  person  in  a  thousand 
would  ever  have  thought  of  Serajevo  again  if  a 
Conference  had  met  in  July,  1914. 

But  Conferences  and  the  whole  co-ordinated 
machinery  for  the  pacific  settlement  of  disputes 
would  act  on  national  psychology  in  another  way. 
They  would  prevent  fear,  and  the  exploitation  of 
fear,  by  people  who  are  quite  ready  to  attain  their 
ends  at  the  risk  of  war.  The  great  advantage  of 
Conferences  and  judicial  tribunals  is  that  they 
bring  things  out  into  the  light.  The  diplomatist 
is  compelled,  to  some  extent,  to  put  his  cards  on 
the  green  baize  table,  or  to  show  his  hand  to  the 
Court.  The  real  question  in  dispute  is  really  dis- 
cussed, instead  of  being  lost  on  the  back  stairs  of 
Foreign  Offices  and  Embassies.  And  as  soon  as  a 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  135 

question  is  discussed,  reasonable  men  see  that  there 
is  a  reasonable  method  of  settling  it.  It  is  dark- 
ness, doubt,  and  ignorance  which  breed  fear,  and 
fear  which  breeds  war.  To  prevent  war,  what  is 
wanted  in  diplomacy  and  international  relation- 
ships is  light,  said  M.  Hanotaux,  himself  a  states- 
man and  diplomatist.  Light  not  only  dispels  fear 
and  suspicion,  but  makes  dishonesty  difficult. 
Even  the  most  cynical  diplomatist  dare  not  openly 
avow  and  practise  bad  faith  in  international  re- 
lations; and  if  we  could  compel  him  to  act  in  the 
light,  we  should  compel  him  to  act  honestly. 

Therefore,  even  in  a  case  in  which  our  Inter- 
national Authority  is  weakest,  even  where  we  have 
most  conspicuously  failed  to  solve  those  difficulties 
which  appeared  in  Chapter  V,  its  machinery  could 
do  much  to  prevent  war.  It  would  allay  unrea- 
soning excitement;  it  would  let  in  the  light;  it 
would  strengthen  the  hands  of  those  persons  who 
were  working  for  peace.  But  perhaps  its  most 
potent  influence  would  come  from  another  side. 
The  holding  of  Conferences  whose  decisions  would 
be  binding  in  questions  which  did  not  affect  the 
independence  and  internal  sovereignty  of  States 
would  involve  a  formal  recognition  of  that  prin- 
ciple upon  which  the  future  stability  of  inter- 
national society  depends — the  principle  that  the 
nations  have  the  right  collectively  to  settle  ques- 
tions which  imperil  the  peace  of  the  world.  It  is 
true  that  the  recognition  of  that  principle  would 
apply  only  to  a  small  and  comparatively  unim- 
portant class  of  questions.  But,  at  least,  we  should 


136  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

have  made  a  beginning,  have  laid  foundations  out 
of  which  a  more  rational  system  of  international 
relationship  might  grow.  We  have  now  tried  for 
one  or  two  centuries,  with  lamentable  results,  a 
system  admirably  described  by  Swift  in  the  epi- 
gram at  the  head  of  this  report.  We  have  adapted 
our  international  machinery  solely  to  the  hopeless 
task  of  balancing  Europe  in  armed  and  hostile 
groups.  It  will  be  some  gain  if  we  have  at  least 
the  machinery  and  the  power  to  regulate  some 
international  affairs  upon  a  more  rational  system. 


PART  II 
INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 


11 


CHAPTER  I 

INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT,  INTERNATIONAL 

AGREEMENT,  AND  INTERNATIONAL 

DISAGREEMENT 

EVERYONE  is  born  either  a  "practical  man" 
or  an  "amiable  crank,"  and  by  their  words, 
oddly  enough,  you  shall  know  them.  In  the 
first  category  one  may  place  Thrasymachus,  Kleon, 
Pontius  Pilate,  Bismarck,  General  Boulanger, 
Queen  Victoria,  the  late  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  all 
the  nameless  gentlemen  who  write  leaders  in  the 
daily  Press;  in  the  latter,  Socrates,  Plato,  Daedalus, 
Jesus  Christ,  Voltaire,  Miss  Jane  Addams,  et  id 
genus  omne.  Now  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the 
practical  man  of  to-morrow  almost  invariably  says 
exactly  what  the  amiable  crank  is  hanged  or 
laughed  at  for  saying  by  the  practical  man  of 
to-day.  Thus  a  Times  leader-writer  in  1916  has 
a  profound  admiration  for  Socrates;  yet  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  if  he  had  been  born  some  2,300 
years  ago  he  would  have  written:  "We  yield  to 
none  in  our  determination  to  uphold  the  right  to 
freedom  of  speech,  which  is  the  common  inheritance 
of  Athenians;  but  a  right  implies  a  duty,  and  the 
people  of  this  country,  unlike  the  Government,  is 
determined  in  these  critical  times  not  to  allow  its 
young  men  to  be  corrupted  by  the  pernicious  doc- 

139 


140  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

trines  of  amiable  cranks  and  men  who  hide  their 
sinister  motives  under  a  cloak  of  idealism.  We 
believe  the  country  to  be  right,  though  we  are 
inclined  to  think  that  this  was  a  case  in  which 
justice  might  have  been  tempered  with  mercy,  and 
the  death  sentence  commuted  to  one  of  penal 
servitude  for  life."  Again,  Bismarck  and  Queen 
Victoria  were  both  devout  Christians  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  yet  they  certainly  would  not  have 
been  so  in  the  first,  if  the  one  had  been  sitting  on 
the  throne  of  Caesar  and  the  other  had  been 
Caesar's  Imperial  Chancellor. 

We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  by  these  reflections 
that  every  amiable  crank  is  always  right  and  every 
practical  man  is  always  wrong.  What  we  suggest 
is  that  all  through  the  history  of  the  world  people 
calling  themselves  plain  and  practical  men  have 
been  led  into  the  most  hideous  and  disastrous 
errors  by  accepting  false  inferences  and  false 
standards  as  obvious  and  fundamental  truths, 
while  other  men  have  been  reviled  and  humiliated 
as  cranks  and  charlatans  precisely  for  insisting 
upon  the  falsity  of  these  standards  and  inferences. 
These  considerations  are  relevant  because  anyone 
who  expresses  a  belief  in  the  possibility  of  Inter- 
national Government,  the  efficacy  of  international 
agreement,  or  the  illusion  of  international  rivalry, 
is  in  danger  of  being  shouted  down  as  a  crank  or 
worse  by  a  chorus  of  plain  and  practical  men.  All 
round  us  to-day  are  people,  like  Mr.  Maxse  and 
Mr.  Blatchford,  who  hold  up  to  execration  or 
contempt  anyone  who  denies  the  premises  of  their 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  141 

arguments,  the  premises  that  International  Gov- 
ernment is  a  dream,  that  international  agreement 
is  a  delusion  and  snare,  and  that  national  interests 
demand  a  perpetuation  of  international  warfare, 
the  open  warfare  of  bayonets  and  blood,  or  the 
suppressed  warfare  of  tariffs  and  armaments.  But 
these  premises,  which  are  thundered  forth  as  self- 
evident  truths,  are  nothing  of  the  kind;  whether 
they  are  true  or  false  depends  upon  a  mass  of 
extremely  complicated  and  unfamiliar  facts  and 
inferences.  I  propose  in  the  following  chapters, 
therefore,  to  examine  some  of  the  more  important 
facts,  and  to  suggest  some  of  the  more  important 
inferences  that  can  be  drawn  from  them. 

What  does  one  mean  by  International  Govern- 
ment? In  the  broadest  sense — and  the  one  in 
which  I  propose  to  use  it — International  Govern- 
ment means  the  regulation  of  relations  between 
States,  Nations,  or  Peoples  by  international  agree- 
ment. When  the  world  and  man  were  young,  in- 
ternational relations  were  confined  almost  exclu- 
sively to  physical  contiguity  of  frontiers,  and  to 
periodical  and  mutual  killing  and  pillaging  of 
neighbors.  Communication  was  so  difficult  that 
intercourse  of  individuals  scarcely  existed,  except 
in  the  case  of  a  few  traders,  or  an  amiable  crank 
like  Herodotus,  who  had  a  dangerous  passion  for 
foreign  travels.  The  supremely  important  ques- 
tion of  international  relationship  was,  therefore,  in 
those  days  one  of  frontiers,  and  for  centuries  it  was 
regulated  almost  entirely  by  armed  warfare. 
Probably  more  wars  have  arisen  as  attempts  to 


142  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

settle  frontier  questions  by  force  than  from  any 
other  cause.  But  apparently  the  world  gradually 
learned  that  this  was  not  a  very  efficient  method 
of  settling  the  physical  relationship  of  States.  At 
any  rate,  it  has  become  more  and  more  usual  to 
regulate  frontier  questions  by  international  agree- 
ment, and  the  last  century  saw  the  custom  of 
settling  such  disputes  by  agreement  to  arbitrate 
established  as  an  almost  universal  rule.  Thus  it 
is  correct  to  say  that  for  frontier  questions  and 
international  relations  which  result  from  physical 
contiguity,  a  system  of  International  Government 
has  evolved  in  the  regulation  of  those  relations  by 
agreements,  and  in  the  last  resource  by  judicial 
decisions. 

This  is  one  example  of  the  substitution  of  Inter- 
national Government  for  international  warfare  as 
a  method  of  regulating  inter-State  relations.  In 
the  first  part  of  this  book  I  considered  the  question 
of  the  possibility  of  the  creation  or  development  of 
machinery  through  which  all  the  relations  of  States 
might  be  submitted  in  the  same  way  to  Inter- 
national Government  rather  than  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  arms.  In  other  words,  I  was  considering 
the  possibility  of  regulating  international  relations 
by  agreement,  and,  as  the  task  set  myself  was 
strictly  limited,  I  confined  myself  to  the  question 
of  the  kinds  of  machinery — international  law, 
treaties,  conferences,  judicial  tribunals,  and  an 
international  authority — which,  in  the  case  of  in- 
ternational disputes,  were  likely  to  lead  to  agree- 
ment, and  so  prevent  war.  I  was,  therefore,  in 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  143 

those  chapters  mainly  concerned  with  those  differ- 
ences and  disputes  of  a  legal,  economic,  or  political 
character  which  have  in  the  past  led  nations  into 
war.  My  conclusion  was  that  the  deliberate  cre- 
ation of  organized  machinery  for  settling  such 
differences  and  disputes  in  the  shape  of  an  inter- 
national authority  would  go  far  towards  ensuring 
agreement  and  towards  making  war  extremely 
improbable.  But  I  did  not  generally  or  in  detail 
deal  with  the  wider  question  of  the  possibility  of 
International  Government  and  international  agree- 
ment, and,  therefore,  with  the  contention  of  the 
"plain  and  practical  man"  school  of  writers  that 
the  application  of  government  by  agreement  to 
international  relations  is  the  dream  of  the  idealistic 
fool.  In  this  part  I  propose  to  deal  with  this 
wider  problem. 

This  is  by  no  means  a  question  of  theoretical 
interest  only.  The  dogma  that  war  is  a  natural 
and  necessary  corollary  of  the  existence  of  States, 
and  that,  therefore,  International  Government  is 
not  practically  possible,  has  been  and  will  be  con- 
tinually used  as  an  argument  against  particular 
proposals  and  attemps  to  develop  international 
agreement.  The  whole  history  of  diplomacy  is  one 
long  tale  of  this  disastrous  process,  of  men  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  saturated  with  this 
theory  struggling  against  the  natural  tendency  of 
the  world  towards  International  Government. 
The  Hague  Conferences,  in  so  far  as  they  failed, 
were  not  failures  of  impossible  ideals  before  hard 
facts,  but  the  triumphs  of  this  dogma  over  facts — 


144  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  facts  which  I  propose  to  enquire  into  in  this 
part.  The  reasons  which  the  large  numbers  of 
persons  who  hold  and  preach  this  dogma  give  for 
believing  in  it  may  be  divided  into  three  classes, 
and  it  is  only  with  the  third  class  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  deal  in  detail.  The  first  class  is  purely 
mystical.  It  is  frequently  asserted  or  assumed  that 
there  is  some  mysterious  property  or  quality  in 
States  and  nations  which  makes  them  mutually 
and  inevitably  hostile;  that  this  natural  and  irra- 
tional hostility,  though  it  lie  dormant  for  years, 
must  break  out  and  spend  itself  periodically  in 
bloodshed,  and  that,  therefore,  any  effective  sys- 
tem of  government  by  agreement  between  States 
and  nations  must  be  impracticable.  This  theory, 
the  result  of  confused  thinking,  has  given  rise  to 
an  immense  amount  of  mystical  philosophy  and 
history,  under  the  title  "crowd-psychology."  Thus 
Sir  Martin  Conway  asserts  that  nations  are  crowds, 
and  that,  apparently  by  a  divine  dispensation  of 
Providence,  the  only  relation  that  one  crowd  can 
have  to  another  crowd  is  the  emotional  one  of 
hatred:  ergo,  nations  must  hate  one  another.  But 
Sir  Martin's  assertion  and  the  whole  theory  is  the 
result  of  confusing  metaphor  and  fantasy  with 
facts.  A  national  emotion  can  only  be  used  meta- 
phorically of  the  emotion  of  hatred  felt  by  the 
individuals  who  make  up  a  nation;  in  other  words, 
there  cannot  be  an  emotion  outside  the  individuals 
who  feel  it.  The  fact  that  each  individual  forms 
one  of  a  crowd,  or  of  a  nation,  does,  of  course, 
influence  his  emotion;  but  there  is  no  composite 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  145 

emotion  of  the  crowd.  Now,  it  is  certain  that 
ordinarily  the  individuals  who  make  up  a  nation 
feel  no  emotion  at  all  towards  those  individuals 
who  form  other  nations;  but  when  States  and  the 
individuals  of  which  they  are  composed  are 
brought  into  frequent  contact  and  relation  with 
one  another,  the  individuals  of  one  nation  acquire 
feelings  towards  those  of  another  which  may  vary 
from  hatred  and  repulsion  to  affection  and  attrac- 
tion. But  these  "national"  emotions  are  not  a 
mysterious  property  of  crowds;  they  can  be  traced, 
just  as  the  emotions  of  one  individual  towards  any 
other,  to  community  or  divergence  of  circumstances 
in  the  relations  of  the  individuals  themselves. 
International  feeling  in  Germany,  Great  Britain, 
and  the  United  States  of  America  will  afford  clear 
proof  of  this.  The  position  of  Germany  and 
America  towards  Britain  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  in  many  ways  identical. 
Each  of  the  first  two  was  a  young  nation  with  a 
rapidly  increasing  population,  with  no  colonial 
empire;  they  were,  too,  the  chief  commercial  and 
industrial  competitors  of  Britain.  Yet  it  would 
be  absurd  to  pretend  that  the  national  emotion  in 
this  country  towards  the  other  two  was  in  1913 
the  same — namely,  one  of  hatred  and  opposition. 
The  Englishman's  feeling  towards  the  German  was 
nationally  one  of  suspicion  and  hostility;  this  was 
due  partly  to  a  consciousness  of  differences  of 
language,  customs,  institutions,  and  ideals;  partly 
to  the  belief  that  the  German  was  aiming  at  a 
colonial  empire,  which  he  could  only  obtain  by 


146  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

depriving  us  of  ours;  in  other  words,  to  a  belief  in 
the  divergence  of  German  and  English  interests. 
The  Englishman's  feeling  towards  the  American 
was  nationally  one  of  friendliness;  this  was  due 
partly  to  a  consciousness  of  common  stock,  lan- 
guage, customs,  and  ideals;  partly  to  the  belief 
that  the  national  aims  of  America  in  no  way 
threatened  our  own;  in  other  words,  to  a  belief  in 
the  community  of  English  and  American  interests. 
There  is,  then,  no  mysterious  property  in  crowds 
and  nations  which  makes  national  hatred  inevi- 
table. The  national  feeling  of  Englishmen  towards 
Frenchmen  was  as  real  after  the  entente  as  before 
it;  it  had  changed  from  hostility  and  fear  to  affec- 
tion and  reliance  because  a  belief  that  French  aims 
and  interests  were  on  the  whole  the  same  as  ours 
was  substituted  for  a  conviction  that  French  ideals 
were  hostile  to  us  and  French  interests  threatened 
ours.  But  people  who  hold  the  dogma  of  inter- 
national hostility  often  support  the  mystical  line 
of  reasoning  by  a  second  class  of  scientific  or 
pseudo-scientific  reasons.  The  Darwinian  theory 
and  the  biological  law  of  development  through  the 
struggle  for  existence  are  enlisted  to  prove  a  cease- 
less and  inevitable  struggle  for  existence  between 
"waxing  and  waning"  nations.  This  doctrine  has 
become  notorious  as  "made  in  Germany,"  because 
it  forms  the  basis  of  the  popular  books  of  General 
von  Bernhardi;  but  it  seems  to  commend  itself  to 
many  English  writers  who  would  be  the  first  to 
execrate  the  logical  conclusions  of  the  German 
cavalry  officer  to  which  it  leads.  The  doctrine  is 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  147 

itself  based  upon  a  misunderstanding  of  Darwin 
and  a  misapplication  of  a  misunderstood  "scientific 
law"  from  one  set  of  facts  to  another;  but  to  prove 
this  assertion  would  involve  a  long  scientific  argu- 
ment which  would  carry  us  far  afield.  Moreover, 
the  whole  fallacy  has  been  fully  dealt  with  and 
conclusively  exposed  in  Evolution  and  the  War,  by 
Dr.  Chalmers  Mitchell,  to  which  I  must  refer  the 
reader  who  desires  proof. 

The  third  class  of  reasons  is  entirely  different 
from  the  other  two,  though  it  is  often  confused 
with  them.  It  is  clear,  as  I  have  just  pointed  out, 
that  international  hostility  does  spring  very  often 
from  the  consciousness  in  individuals  of  one  nation 
that  their  ideals,  language,  institutions,  etc.,  differ 
from  those  of  the  individuals  of  other  nations,  and 
also  from  a  belief  that  their  own  national  interests 
are  opposed  to  or  threatened  by  the  national  in- 
terests of  others.  The  existence  of  such  a  con- 
sciousness and  belief  is  used  frequently  as  an  argu- 
ment to  prove  that  International  Government  and 
international  agreement  are  impossible  or  unde- 
sirable. All  kinds  of  ramifications  and  elabora- 
tions of  this  argument  are  continually  being 
evolved.  For  instance,  it  is  often  asserted  that 
national  differences  of  custom,  language,  institu- 
tions, etc.,  actually  do  make  government  by  agree- 
ment impossible — an  argument  which  is  obviously 
quite  different  from  the  fact  noted  above,  namely, 
that  hostility  springs  sometimes  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  such  differences — and  which  is  dis- 
proved by  the  existence  of  the  Swiss  Confedera- 


148  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

tion  alone.  Or,  again,  the  assertion  is  made,  or  it 
is  assumed  as  a  self-evident  fact,  that  the  interests 
of  nations  actually  are  irreconcilably  opposed,  and 
therefore  that  government  based  upon  interna- 
tional agreement  must  either  be  illusory  or,  if 
real,  must  result  in  a  betrayal  of  our  national 
interests. 

Here,  then,  is  the  real  crux  of  Internationalism, 
no  matter  what  particular  form  it  takes.  Is  it 
true  that  the  regulation  of  international  relations, 
whether  of  the  governments  and  administrations 
or  of  the  individuals  and  groups  of  individuals  of 
States,  is  impossible,  because  of  an  impassable 
gulf  of  differences  in  national  laws,  customs,  lan- 
guages and  ideals,  or  because  national  interests 
remain,  and  must  remain,  irreconcilably  opposed? 
The  answer  to  this  question  is  certainly  not  self- 
evident;  it  must  depend  upon  a  knowledge  and 
correct  interpretation  of  a  vast  number  of  intri- 
cate, little-known  historical  and  other  facts.  If 
we  desire  to  know  how  far  it  is  possible  and  by 
what  methods  it  is  most  practicable  to  apply  gov- 
ernment by  agreement  to  international  relations, 
we  must  turn  to  facts  and  ascertain  what  has  been 
the  history  of  such  government,  and  how  far  the 
divergencies  of  national  life  and  the  clashing  of 
national  interests  have  withstood  or  have  yielded 
to  systems  and  methods  of  obtaining  international 
agreement.  It  is  these  questions  and  these  facts 
which  I  now  propose  to  examine. 

Historically,  the  facts,  when  fully  examined, 
will,  I  believe,  show  first  that  a  profound  change 


• PREVENTION  OF  WAR 149 

in  international  relations  has  been  taking  place 
since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
that  the  people  who  repeat  and  repeat  again  that 
International  Government  is  Utopian,  and  inter- 
national agreement  must  betray  national  inter- 
ests, simply  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  in 
every  department  of  life  the  beginnings,  and  more 
than  the  beginnings,  of  International  Government 
already  exist,  and  that  in  every  department  of  life, 
even  where  the  conflict  of  national  interests  ought 
to  be  most  acute,  international  interests  are  far 
stronger  and  far  more  real  than  national  interests, 
and  the  latter  can  be  and  have  been  successfully 
harmonized,  combined,  and  merged  in  the  former 
by  means  of  international  agreements.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  in  early  times  States  were 
commonly  regarded  as  water-tight  compartments 
of  conflicting  interests.  Ex  hypothesi,  therefore, 
what  was  one  State's  gain  must  be  every  other 
State's  loss.  This  extraordinary  theory,  which  a 
moment's  calm  reflection  will  show  to  be  false, 
still  forms  the  basis  of  the  art  of  diplomacy,  and 
influences  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  many 
people  who  ought  to  know  better.  To  give  one 
and  a  striking  example,  only  the  other  day  a 
learned  writer  in  the  Times  solemnly  used  an 
argument  which  implied  that  if  Great  Britain 
bought  goods  from  a  foreign  country  and  that 
country  benefited  by  the  trade,  the  other's  benefit 
must  be  the  measure  of  Britain's  loss.  This  gen- 
tleman would  certainly  have  agreed  that  if  Lan- 
cashire exchanged  cotton  goods  for  coal  from 


150  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Northumberland,  the  benefit  derived  by  North- 
umberland might  well  be  the  measure  of  the 
benefit  derived  by  Lancashire;  but  substitute 
Britain  for  Lancashire  and  Germany  for  North- 
umberland, and  immediately  the  light  of  his  in- 
telligence is  snuffed  out  by  the  fog  of  old  super- 
stitions about  "irreconcilable  national  interests." 

But  though  these  old  superstitions  are  still 
strong  in  the  world,  thousands  of  people  in  the  last 
century  began  to  lose  or  to  doubt  them.  The  recog- 
nition of  international  interests,  and  that  national 
interests  are  international  interests,  and  vice  versa, 
was  the  great  social  discovery  of  the  last  100  years. 
This  discovery  has  operated  in  many  different  ways, 
all  of  which  throw  light  upon  the  problem  of  In- 
ternational Government.  In  the  first  place,  it  has 
led  to  the  spontaneous  creation  and  evolution  of  a 
large  number  of  new  organizations,  international 
organs  and  organisms,  the  functions  of  which  are 
either  to  regulate  through  agreements  the  relations 
of  States  or  administrations,  or  individuals  or 
groups  of  individuals,  belonging  to  several  States; 
or,  looked  at  from  another  point  of  view,  to  promote 
international  interests  and  harmonize  national 
interests.  The  result  has  been,  at  least,  two  clearly 
defined  lines  of  human  progress.  The  first  has  been 
the  establishment  of  direct  International  Govern- 
ment for  many  departments  of  human  affairs  in 
which  separate  national  governments  and  organiza- 
tions have  proved  unable  to  watch  over  and 
promote  international  interests.  The  International 
Administration  applied  to  Posts  and  Telegraphs,  to 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  151 

Railways,  to  Currency  and  Coinage,  to  the  preven- 
tion of  diseases,  to  agricultural  interests,  and  to  the 
collection  and  publication  of  information,  is  the 
most  obvious  example  of  this  tendency.  A  study 
of  the  working  of  these  administrations  throws 
much  light  upon  the  dogma  of  the  anti-interna- 
tionalist, for  in  these  already  highly  developed 
forms  of  International  Government  one  can  see 
the  real  relations  of  national  to  international 
interests,  and  the  possibility  or  impossibility  of 
harmonizing  them  by  agreements.  But  direct 
International  Government  is  in  process  of  estab- 
lishment not  only  by  these  "official"  international 
administrations,  but  also,  as  I  shall  show,  by  un- 
official bodies  or  groups  of  individuals  in  the 
different  countries.  When  national  groups  of 
capitalists,  manufacturers  or  merchants  organize 
themselves  internationally,  and  proceed  to  regulate 
the  production  and  distribution  of  commodities 
throughout  the  world  by  international  agreements 
arrived  at  in  these  organizations,  we  have  in  this 
as  true  a  type  of  International  Government  as  in 
the  Universal  Postal  Union — and  the  same  prob- 
lems of  national  and  international  interests  have  to 
be  solved.  And  this  is  true  of  the  similar  organiza- 
tions of  Labor,  of  science,  of  professions,  or  even  of 
criminals. 

The  second  line  of  development  is  no  less 
relevant  to  the  dogma  of  anti-internationalism. 
The  dogma  rested  upon  an  exaltation  of  the 
differences  of  national  laws,  customs,  education, 
and  ideals.  Now,  it  is  precisely  in  breaking  down 


152  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

these  differences  that  the  spontaneous  international 
movement  of  the  last  century  has  been  most  suc- 
cessful. In  the  most  widely  separated  fields  of 
human  activity  this  process  has  been  taking  place 
simply  because  it  has  become  clear  that  these 
differences  are  themselves  inimical  to  international 
interests  and,  therefore,  to  national  interests.  This 
result  has  been  achieved  by  international  agree- 
ments arrived  at,  in  or  through  international  or- 
ganizations. A  knowledge  and  understanding 
of  this  tendency  is,  therefore,  essential  before  any 
judgment  on  the  possibilities  of  International 
Government  is  made. 

I  propose,  therefore,  in  the  next  chapter  to  deal 
generally  with  the  history  and  structure  of  the 
various  International  Organs  and  Organisms  which 
made  their  appearance  in  the  last  century.  In  the 
following  chapters  I  shall  deal  in  detail  with  their 
achievements,  tracing  in  particular  these  two  great 
international  tendencies — first  the  growth  and 
operation  of  true  International  Government  which 
has  been  the  natural  result  of  the  consciousness 
of  international  interests;  second,  the  interna- 
tionalizing of  laws,  science,  customs,  thought, 
industry,  commerce,  and  society. 


CHAPTER  II 

INTERNATIONAL  ORGANS  AND  ORGANISMS 

IT  is  common  to  regard  "government"  as 
always  connected  with  "official"  or  "State" 
organization  or  organs.  The  Houses  of  Par- 
liament, the  Courts  of  Justice,  the  policeman,  and 
the  Borough  Council  are  all  in  this  sense  organs 
of  national  government.  But  the  complexity  of 
modern  society  has  made  this  conception  far  too 
narrow.  National  government  is  the  regulation 
of  relations  between  individuals  living  within  the 
territory  of  the  nation.  It  may  be  true  that  when 
the  structure  of  society  was  simpler  those  relations 
were  regulated,  in  so  far  as  regulation  existed  at 
all,  by  State  organizations  and  rules  and  laws 
emanating  from  organs  of  State.  But  even  in 
those  early  times  the  Church  and  the  Guild,  to 
take  two  examples  only,  were  as  obviously  organs 
of  government  as  the  Legislature  and  the  court  of 
law.  They  were  so  because  they  were  associa- 
tions of  individuals  whose  decisions  regulated  the 
conduct  and  mutual  relations  of  individuals. 
And  in  the  same  way  to-day  the  regulation  of 
industry  and  labor  by  associations  of  manufac- 
turers, consumers  or  workers,  the  regulation  of 
science  by  associations  of  scientists,  of  professions 
by  associations  of  professional  men,  or  of  sport 
18  153 


154  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

by  associations  of  cricketers  or  football  players 
or  swimmers,  are  all  no  less  parts  of  the  system  of 
national  government  than  the  regulation  of  sani- 
tation by  a  borough  council  or  of  bankruptcy  by 
the  Bankruptcy  Court. 

The  narrow  vision  of  government  and  the  func- 
tions of  government  as  limited  to  State  or  Munic- 
ipal organization  leads  to  much  misunderstanding 
of  the  history  and  the  future  of  International  Gov- 
ernment. In  the  eighteenth  century  no  regular 
organs  of  International  Government  existed  at  all. 
The  relations  of  sovereign  States  were  confined  to 
diplomatic  conversations,  and  were  regulated  only 
by  a  few  treaties  concluded  at  rare  intervals  to 
meet  particular  circumstances,  or  by  a  small  and 
vacillating  code  of  customary  law  known  as  the 
Law  of  Nations.  This  lack  of  International  Gov- 
ernment was  not  felt  to  any  very  great  extent, 
simply  because,  owing  to  the  want  of  adequate 
means  of  communication,  there  were  very  few 
international  relations  which  required  regulation 
at  all.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  number  of 
persons  in  these  islands  who  had  any  relations 
with  any  inhabitants  of  Sweden  could  probably 
be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  two  hands;  to-day, 
any  person  who  buys  a  box  of  matches  is  linked 
by  an  intricate  chain  of  relationship  with  hun- 
dreds of  Swedish  woodcutters,  factory  workers, 
employers,  railway  men,  and  shippers.  In  the 
eighteenth  century,  therefore,  because  relations 
between  the  individuals  of  the  two  countries 
scarcely  existed,  interests  common  to  Englishmen 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  155 

and  Swedes  did  not  exist,  or,  at  any  rate,  could 
not  become  apparent  to  the  people  themselves; 
to-day,  the  continual  intercourse  between  the  two 
countries  produces  a  network  of  Anglo-Swedish 
interests  which  affect  the  every-day  life  of  hun- 
dreds of  persons  in  the  two  countries.  And  a 
similar  network  of  international  intercourse  and 
interests  has  been  woven,  mainly  by  the  railway, 
the  steamship,  the  telegraph,  and  the  telephone, 
over  the  whole  face  of  the  earth. 

It  is  impossible  to  have  any  highly  organized 
system  of  human  relationship  without  govern- 
ment— that  is  to  say,  without  regulation  of  the 
relations  through  agreement  or  agreements.  Man 
adapts  his  institutions  to  his  needs,  and,  if  he 
did  not,  he  would  have  remained  with  the  simple 
needs  and  under  the  simple  institutions  of  his 
cousins  of  the  jungle — the  gorilla,  the  chimpan- 
zee, and  the  ourang-outang.  Thus  the  system  of 
International  Government  which  has  developed  in 
the  last  100  years  has  not  been  the  perverse  in- 
vention of  international  cranks,  but  a  spontaneous 
growth  to  meet  international  needs,  and  without 
which  every-day  life,  as  we  know  it,  would  have 
been  impossible.  The  development  of  the  system 
has  proceeded  along  four  different  lines,  entailing 
the  growth  of  four  different  kinds  of  international 
organization  or  organism. 

The  first  line  has  been  to  develop  the  ordinary 
diplomatic  methods  of  obtaining  agreements  be- 
tween the  governments  of  independent  sovereign 
States.  As  I  showed  in  the  previous  part,  the 


156  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

diplomatic  conference  or  congress,  as  a  means  of 
regulating  by  agreements  embodied  in  treaties  the 
relations  of  States  or  of  the  individual  citizens  of 
States,  was  really  the  invention  of  the  last  century, 
and  is  clearly  a  rudimentary  international  legisla- 
ture. By  the  twentieth  century  we  had  reached 
a  stage  at  which  no  year  passed  without  several 
such  conferences  meeting,  and  at  which  between 
50  and  100  treaties,  embodying  international  leg- 
islation, were  signed  annually.  A  glance  at  the 
subjects  of  these  conferences  and  treaties  shows 
the  extent  of  the  field  of  international  relationship 
to  which  they  have  by  agreement  applied  legisla- 
tive regulation.  They  deal  with  international 
trade,  industry  and  finance,  international  com- 
munications, health,  science,  art,  literature,  morals 
and  crime,  emigration  and  immigration,  besides 
the  "political"  relations  of  States.  Steadily,  under 
the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  which  inevitably 
voices  and  insists  upon  the  satisfaction  of  the  needs 
of  an  evolving  society,  this  system  of  international 
legislation  has,  as  I  shall  show,  been  working  in  two 
directions :  First,  towards  the  recognition  and  pro- 
tection of  international  interests;  second,  towards 
the  unification  of  administration  and  the  unifica- 
tion of  law  throughout  the  world. 

But  the  Conference  and  Treaty  system  of  the 
last  century  suffered  from  several  serious  defects. 
It  ordinarily  provides  no  regular  or  permanent 
organ  of  International  Government.  A  confer- 
ence only  met  when  the  governments,  or  rather 
the  diplomatists,  of  the  different  States  agreed 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  157 

that  one  should  meet.  The  result  has  been  very 
much  what  would  happen  if  the  House  of  Commons 
broke  up  at  the  end  of  a  session  without  any  rules 
as  to  reassembling,  and  only  met  again  when  all 
the  members  agreed  to  meet,  or,  rather,  yielded  to 
the  pressure  of  their  constituents  who  wanted  the 
government  of  the  country  attended  to.  The  iso- 
lated international  conference  could  only  pass 
isolated  measures  of  international  legislation.  But 
many  international  interests  had  attained  such  a 
degree  of  permanence,  intricacy,  and  urgency  that 
continual  revision  of  international  legislation  and, 
in  some  cases,  some  form  of  international  adminis- 
tration, were  necessary.  The  result  has  been  that 
various  more  or  less  permanent  associations  of  the 
Governments  or  Administrations  of  States  have 
made  their  appearance. 

These  associations  are  sometimes  called  Public 
International  Unions,  and  in  standard  works  on 
International  Law  a  few  meagre  details  about  them 
will  be  found  under  such  headings  as  International 
Unions,  International  Offices,  International  Com- 
missions, etc.  A  detailed  study  of  their  forms  and 
constitutions  would  be  of  great  interest,  for,  as 
any  reference  to  lists  of  them  in  the  few  books 
which  deal  with  them  will  show,  they  vary  from 
being  merely  an  ordinary  diplomatic  conference, 
meeting  at  irregular  intervals,  to  highly  elaborate 
organs  of  International  Government  and  adminis- 
tration. In  the  chapters  that  follow  I  shall  only 
incidentally  be  concerned  with  them  as  formal 
organs  of  governments,  for  my  chief  object  will  be 


15$ 


to  trace  their  effects  upon  national  and  interna- 
tional interests  and  the  kind  of  International  Gov- 
ernment which  they  have  produced.  But  I  pro- 
pose here  to  deal  very  briefly  with  the  number 
and  variety  of  their  forms. 

In  an  American  work,  "Public  International 
Unions,"  by  Paul  A.  Reinsch,  the  statement  is 
made  that  "there  are  in  existence  45  Public  In- 
ternational Unions,  composed  of  States.  Of  these, 
30  are  provided  with  administrative  bureaus  or 
commissions."  The  "Annuaire  de  La  Vie  Inter- 
nationale" for  1910-1911  (an  extraordinarily  com- 
plete Belgian  publication  which  deals  with  all 
forms  of  international  organization)  contains  a  list 
of  41  such  public  Unions.  But  a  very  little  en- 
quiry into  the  form  of  the  organisms  included  in 
these  lists  shows  that  they  differ  so  widely  among 
themselves  that  a  general  classification  of  this  kind 
is  not  of  much  value.  Thus,  in  the  41  Unions  of 
the  Belgian  list,  and  presumably  in  the  45  of  the 
American,  the  Automobile  Conference  and  Con- 
vention of  1909  is  included  side  by  side  with  the 
Universal  Postal  Union.  But  the  first,  regarded 
merely  as  an  organ  of  International  Government, 
or  as  a  "Union  composed  of  States,"  differs  in  no 
way  from  any  other  diplomatic  conference  or  con- 
vention; the  convention  sets  up  no  permanent 
organ  of  government  or  administration — it  is  merely 
an  agreement  between  States  or  administrations 
by  which  each  is  bound  individually  to  take  cer- 
tain administrative  measures;  it  is  not  so  much  a 
union  of  States  as  a  unification  of  national  admin- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 159 

istration;  it  is  unification  of  national  government 
rather  than  the  creation  of  International  Govern- 
ment. The  Automobile  Convention  is  of  great 
importance  and  interest  in  its  effect  upon  Inter- 
national Government,  but  it  does  not  create  an 
organ  of  International  Government  as  did  the  In- 
ternational Postal  Convention  of  1874.  The  Uni- 
versal Postal  Union,  the  offspring  of  that  Con- 
vention, is  a  true  union  of  States  (or  rather  of 
administrations) .  The  Convention  did  not  merely 
bind  the  signatory  Powers  to  do  or  not  to  do  cer- 
tain administrative  acts;  it  created  two  new,  per- 
manent organs  of  International  Government — the 
Postal  Congress,  whose  decisions  are  binding 
upon  the  different  States,  and  the  Postal  Bureau, 
which  is  a  purely  administrative  organ.  This 
Convention,  therefore,  sets  up  international  ad- 
ministration for  the  transport  of  letters,  etc.,  be- 
tween different  States,  and  it  provides  new  organs 
through  which  the  regulation  of  that  transport  by 
agreement  may  be  carried  out. 

If  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  forms  which 
these  "State"  international  organisms  have  taken 
is  to  be  given,  a  more  detailed  classification  of 
them  is  required.  Such  a  classification  would,  I 
suggest,  distinguish  the  following  varieties : 

/. — Permanent    Deliberative    or  Legislative  Organs 
Working  in  Conjunction  with  Administrative 
Organs. 

1 .  The  Telegraphic  Union. 

2.  The  Radio-telegraphic  Union. 


160  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

3.  The  Universal  Postal  Union. 

4.  The  Metric  Union. 

5.  The  International  Institute  of  Agriculture. 

6.  La  Commission  Penitentiaire  Internationale. 

7.  The    Sanitary    Councils    and    International 

Office  of  Public  Hygiene. 

8.  The  International  Geodetic  Association. 

9.  The  International  Seismological  Union. 
10.  The  Pan-American  Union. 

n.  The  Central  American  Union. 

II. — Periodic  Conferences  in  Conjunction  with  Per- 
manent International  Bureaus  or  Offices. 

1 .  Railway  Freight  Transportation. 

2.  Industrial  Property. 

3.  Literary  and  Artistic  Property. 

4.  Pan-American  Sanitary  Union. 

5.  Slave  Trade  and  Liquor  Traffic  in  Africa. 

///. — Conferences  and  Conventions  with  Object  of 
Unifying  National  Laws  or  Administrations* 

I .  Conferences  Internationales  pour  1'Unite  Tech- 
nique des  Chemins  de  Fer. 

*  There  have  been  numerous  other  conferences  and  conventions  which 
have  had  the  same  object,  and  should  rightly  be  included  in  this  list. 
Many  of  them  will  be  referred  to  in  the  following  chapters.  The  ten  are 
given  in  this  list  only  because  they  are  usually  classified  as  Public  Inter- 
national Unions.  There  is,  however,  no  valid  reason  why  the  Convention 
of  1909,  unifying  the  administrative  regulations  in  different  countries  re- 
garding motor-cars,  sign-posts,  etc.,  should  be  considered  to  have  produced 
an  "International  Union,"  while  the  conventions  of  1910,  unifying  the 
regulations  of  maritime  law  (vide  page  272)  in  the  different  countries,  should 
not  be  so  considered. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  161 

2.  Automobile  Conference. 

3.  Latin  Monetary  Union. 

4.  Scandinavian  Monetary  Union. 

5.  Central  American  Monetary  Union. 

6.  Conference  on  Nomenclature  of  Causes  of 

Death. 

7.  Legal  Protection  of  Workers. 

8.  Submarine  Cables. 

9.  Commercial  Statistics. 
10.  White  Slave  Traffic. 

IF. — Special  International  Organs  of  a  Permanent 
Character* 

1.  Sugar  Commission. 

2.  Opium  Commission. 

3.  Plague  Surveillance  in  China. 

4.  International  Committee  of  the  Map  of  the 

World. 

5.  Hague  Tribunal  and  Bureau. 

6.  Central  American  Court  of  Justice. 

7.  International  Bureau  for  the  Publication  of 

Customs  Tariffs. 

It  would  be  possible  to  write  a  considerable 
volume  merely  upon  the  variations  in  form  which 
the  machinery  of  International  Government  has 


*  There  are,  or  were,  a  considerable  number  of  other  international  organs 
set  up  by  special  conventions  which  ought  strictly  to  be  included  in  this 
list,  e.  £.,  the  European  Danube  Commission,  the  International  Commission 
of  the  Congo,  the  Suez  Canal  Commission,  the  Financial  Commissions  in 
Turkey,  Greece,  and  Egypt,  etc.  They  have  not  been  included  because 
they  are  not  usually  regarded  as  organs  of  Public  International  Unions. 


162  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

taken  in  these  thirty-three  international  organisms. 
Even  within  each  of  the  four  classes  there  are 
marked  variations  of  form.  The  machinery  de- 
vised in  the  Telegraphic  and  Postal  Unions,  which 
have  brought  the  exchange  of  telegrams  and  the 
transport  of  letters,  etc.,  under  International 
Government,  is  absolutely  different  from  that 
which,  through  the  International  Sanitary  Con- 
ventions, the  Sanitary  Councils,  and  the  Inter- 
national Office  of  Public  Hygiene,  has  super- 
imposed international  upon  national  government 
in  the  prevention  and  control  of  epidemic  diseases. 
The  most  important  varieties  of  form  will  become 
apparent  in  the  following  chapters,  and  I  propose, 
therefore,  here  only  to  point  out  the  distinguishing 
features  of  the  four  classes.  In  the  first  class  the 
convention  or  conventions  upon  which  the  union 
of  States  is  founded  itself  provides  for  the  creation 
of  some  permanent  deliberative  or  legislative  in- 
ternational body,  and  also  for  an  administrative 
body  working  under  the  direction  of  the  former.* 
The  Telegraphic  Unions,  the  Postal,  and  the 
Metric  Union  are  constituted  on  the  same  model, 
the  deliberative  organ  being  a  conference  or  con- 
gress, and  the  administrative  a  permanent  bureau. 
The  Institute  of  Agriculture  has  a  very  elaborate 
constitution,  with  two  deliberative  bodies,  the 
General  Assembly  and  the  permanent  committee 
and  a  permanent  bureau.  In  the  Commission 
penitentiaire,  the  Geodetic  Association,  and  the 

"The  Sanitary  Councils  are  in  this  respect  anomalous  (vide  infra,  page 
240. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  163 

Seismological  Union,  the  deliberative  organ  is  a 
permanent  Commission.  The  two  American 
Unions  are  highly  developed  associations  of  States, 
with  several  legislative  and  administrative  organs. 
The  second  class  differs  from  the  first  in  that  the 
convention  upon  which  the  union  of  States  is 
founded  does  not  provide  for  any  permanent 
deliberative  or  legislative  body.  The  convention 
concluded  at  an  ordinary  diplomatic  conference  is 
revised  periodically  by  a  similar  conference,  while 
it  is  the  function  of  the  permanent  bureau  or 
office,  created  by  the  convention,  to  watch  over 
the  carrying  out  of  its  provisions.  The  third  class 
consists  of  conferences  and  conventions  which  have 
not  resulted  in  the  creation  of  any  special  inter- 
national organs  of  government,  but  which  have 
tended  to  unify  the  laws  and  methods  of  ad- 
ministration in  the  several  States.  The  fourth 
class  consists  of  a  variety  of  special  international 
organs  created  by  conventions  for  specific  pur- 
poses. 

As  regards  the  history  of  this  development  in 
International  Government,  it  is  important  to  notice 
that  not  one  of  these  thirty-three  unions  or 
organisms  existed  eighty  years  ago.  This  whole 
system  of  regulation  by  international  agreement 
between  States  and  administrations,  which  has 
been  applied,  as  the  list  shows,  to  communications 
and  transport,  to  agricultural  and  commercial 
interests,  to  public  health,  science,  arts,  literature, 
morals,  law  and  order,  evolved  ex  nihilo  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  evolution  began  with  the 


164  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

creation  in  1838*  of  the  Conseil  Superieur  de 
Sante  in  Constantinople,  an  international  body 
appointed  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  intro- 
duction of  cholera  into  Turkey.  But  the  real 
impetus  towards  the  formation  of  International 
Unions  dates  from  1855,  when  the  first  Inter- 
national Telegraph  Convention  was  signed,  which 
led  directly  to  the  formation  of  the  Telegraphic 
Union  in  1865.  This  Union  formed  the  model  for 
the  most  important  of  the  eleven  associations  of 
States  in  the  first  class,  though  it  was  nine  years 
before  another — the  Postal  Union — was  estab- 
lished. It  is,  therefore,  true  to  say  that  the  whole 
of  this  movement  towards  the  regulation  of  inter- 
national relations  by  agreement,  arrived  at  through 
permanent  associations  of  governments  and  ad- 
ministrations or  through  permanent  international 
organs,  has  been  built  up  in  the  last  fifty  years. 

This  new  international  organization  which  we 
have  just  been  considering  is  essentially  one  of 
States.  It  has  grown  out  of  the  ordinary  diplo- 
matic relations  of  State  to  State,  and  it  has 
strictly  maintained  its  "official"  character.  But, 
side  by  side  with  it,  and  in  close  connection  with  it, 
has  appeared  another  and  a  no  less  important 
movement  towards  International  Government. 
In  1840,  for  the  first  time,  I  believe,  in  the  history 


*  The  new  Internationalism  really  began  with  the  Congress  of  Vienna 
in  1815.  The  first  appearance  of  special  international  organs  created 
and  appointed  to  carry  out  specific  international  purposes  is  in  the  Com- 
missions appointed  under  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  to  carry  out  the  provisions 
regarding  navigation  on  certain  European  rivers. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  165 

of  the  world,*  there  assembled  an  International 
Congress,  not  of  representatives  of  the  Govern- 
ments of  States,  but  of  individuals  of  different 
nations  who  realized  that  they  had  an  interest  to 
serve  or  an  object  to  attain  which  was  international 
rather  than  national.  This  was  the  World  Anti- 
Slavery  Convention,  which  met  in  London. 
Between  1840  and  1847  three  more  International 
Congresses  were  held,  two  in  London  (a  religious 
Congress  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  and  a  Peace 
Congress)  and  one  in  Frankfort,  the  Congres  in- 
ternationale  penitentiaire.  After  1847  such  Con- 
gresses were  continually  held,  until  to-day  there  is 
hardly  a  profession,  trade,  occupation,  object,  or 
interest  which  does  not  periodically  gather  together 
in  these  voluntary  associations  the  persons  engaged 
in  or  interested  in  them  in  the  different  countries 
of  the  world.  The  extent  to  which  this  kind  of 
international  intercourse  has  developed  may  be 
gathered  from  the  fact  that  no  less  than  135  Inter- 
national Congresses  were  held  in  the  year  before 
the  war. 

The  congress,  though  interesting  in  itself  as  a  new 
means  of  international  intercourse,  is  most  im- 
portant as  having  developed  into  a  new  organ  of 
International  Government.  The  isolated  congress 
very  early  gave  birth  to  permanent  international 

*It  is  interesting,  perhaps,  to  note  that  the  "congress"  of  private  indi- 
viduals is  itself  a  very  modern  invention.  The  idea  seems  to  have  orig- 
inated with  Alexander  von  Humboldt,  who  assembled  and  presided  over 
a  congress  of  German  scientists  in  Berlin  on  September  18,  1821.  From 
Germany  the  congress  spread  to  England  (1831),  France  (1833),  and  Bel- 
gium (1847). — Vide  La  Vie  Internationale,  1913,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  123. 


166  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

organisms,  composed  of  the  members  or  delegates 
who  had  attended  the  congress  and  of  persons  or 
associations  interested  in  the  subjects  or  questions 
discussed.  Since  1840  over  500  such  voluntary 
international  associations  have  been  created,  and 
over  400  have  a  permanent  existence.  In  the  fol- 
lowing chapters  I  shall  show  in  some  detail  how 
these  organisms  have  contributed  towards  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  International  Govern- 
ment; in  this  chapter  I  am  concerned  only  with 
their  general  character  and  form. 

In  the  Annuaire  de  la  Vie  Internationale ',  re- 
ferred to  above,  some  details  are  given  of  371  such 
associations.  A  mere  glance  at  the  list  opens  one's 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  there  is  hardly  a  sphere  of  life 
in  which  a  consciousness  of  international  interests 
has  not  penetrated,  and  led  to  men  of  every  tongue 
and  race  joining  together  in  order  to  promote  those 
interests.  Practically  every  profession,  from  en- 
gineers and  architects  to  nurses  and  commercial 
travelers,  is  represented.  Industry  and  com- 
merce, from  Chambers  of  Commerce  to  bird- 
fanciers  and  cinematograph  film  makers;  Labor, 
in  some  forty  separate  International  Federations; 
Science,  from  the  powerful  Electrotechnical  Com- 
mission to  the  International  Society  of  Psychical 
Research;  Medicine,  with  as  many  as  thirty-nine 
distinct  associations;  Art,  Literature,  Learning  and 
Religion  have  all  entered  the  field  of  international 
organization.  Finally,  there  are  innumerable 
associations  of  persons  working  for  some  special 
social  object,  like  Women's  Suffrage,  Temperance, 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  167 

or  the  suppression  of  prostitution,  and  who  are 
seeking  to  attain  that  object  by  international 
action.  In  this  division  Morals,  Education,  and 
Feminism  provide  the  largest  numbers,  but  the 
Catholicism  of  internationalism  is  well  shown  by 
the  existence  of  an  "International  Association  for 
the  Suppression  of  Useless  Noises"  and  an  "Inter- 
national Association  for  the  Rational  Destruction 
of  Rats." 

The  form  of  these  organisms  is  scarcely  less  vari- 
ous than  their  objects  and  names.  In  order  to  co- 
ordinate their  activities  there  was  established  in 
Brussels  in  1910  an  international  association  formed 
of  international  associations — L'Union  des  Associa- 
tions Internationales — and  the  definition  of  an  in- 
ternational association  adopted  by  the  Union  lays 
down  that  it  must  have  three  characteristics:— 

(1)  It  must  have  individual  or  collective  mem- 
bers belonging  to  different  countries,  and  member- 
ship must  be  open  to  similar  elements  of  different 
countries. 

(2)  Its  object  must  be  one  which  interests  all  or 
some  nations,  and  which  is  not  profit. 

(3)  It  must  possess  a  permanent  organ. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  definition  is  very 
wide.  However,  the  great  majority  of  the  organi- 
zations that  fall  within  it  conform  to  the  following 
type.  They  have  a  general  assembly  or  supreme 
legislative  organ,  which  meets  in  Congress  every 
year,  two  years,  or  even  at  longer  intervals.  The 
function  of  the  Congress  is  confined  to  passing 
resolutions.  An  executive  body,  usually  called  a 


168  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

permanent  Committee,  Council,  or  Commission, 
and  elected  or  appointed  at  a  Congress,  carries  on 
the  work  of  the  Association  in  the  intervals  be- 
tween Congresses.  In  close  connection  with  the 
executive  is  a  permanent  paid  secretariat,  called 
either  a  Bureau  or  an  Office.  But  there  the  re- 
semblances end;  in  membership,  in  organization 
and  constitution,  in  the  relations  of  the  different 
organs,  in  rules  as  to  procedure  and  voting,  every 
kind  of  variation  is  to  be  found.  With  the 
majority  of  those  variations  I  do  not  propose  to 
deal,  but  there  are  one  or  two  points  which  de- 
serve notice  as  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  Inter- 
national Government. 

The  most  important  point  is  the  membership, 
for  through  it  the  International  Association  seems 
to  be  working  towards  a  new  type  of  human  asso- 
ciation and  a  new  method  of  human  government. 
The  membership  of  most  international  associations 
is  composed  either  of  individuals,  or  of  associations 
of  individuals,  belonging  to  various  countries,  or 
of  both.  It  is  when  associations  adopt  the  two 
latter  types  that  their  scope  and  their  influence 
can  become  considerable.  But  there  are  important 
variations  even  within  the  types  themselves.  For 
instance,  some  international  associations  are  really 
federations  of  national  associations,  which  had,  and 
have,  an  independent  existence  of  their  own,  but 
which  become  conscious  of  pursuing  the  same 
object  in  their  several  countries.  Many  asso- 
ciations whose  object  is  social  reform,  and  all 
Labor  associations,  are  of  this  type.  Thus  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  169 

International  League  Against  the  Abuse  of  Spir- 
ituous Drinks,  created  in  1897,  is  a  federation  of 
anti-alcoholic  societies,  while  the  International 
Federation  of  Miners,  the  International  Union  of 
Woodworkers,  thev  International  Federation  of 
Metalworkers,  and  the  thirty-six  other  interna- 
tional associations  of  workers  are  federations  of 
national  federations,  themselves  composed  of  the 
trade  unions  which  organize  the  workers  in  the 
mining,  wood,  metal,  and  other  trades.  On  the 
other  hand,  many  international  associations  are 
not  so  much  federations  of  national  groups,  which 
existed  for  specific  national  purposes  before  the 
constitution  of  the  international  group,  but  are 
composed  of  national  groups,  sections,  or  asso- 
ciations which  have  been  formed  specifically  for 
international  purposes.  Thus  the  Commission 
Electrotechnique  Internationale  is  composed  of 
representatives  of  local  Electrotechnical  Commit- 
tees appointed  in  each  country  by  the  governments 
or  technical  societies,  and  the  Inter-Parliamentary 
Union  of  twenty-four  national  groups  of  members 
of  the  Parliaments  of  twenty-four  different 
countries. 

These  two  kinds  of  international  association 
follow  the  lines  of  many  national  voluntary  asso- 
ciations. But  a  new  development  of  a  remarkable 
kind  has  taken  place  in  recent  years.  It  has  long 
been  customary  for  the  Governments  of  States 
and  the  municipal  authorities  of  towns  to  send 
official  representatives  to  the  more  important 
international  Congresses  and  to  make  contribu- 

13 


170  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

tions  to  the  funds  of  many  international  associa- 
tions.* But  lately  in  more  than  one  case  States 
and  municipalities  have  themselves  become  mem- 
bers of  some  influential  international  organizations. 
The  membership  of  such  an  association  often  pre- 
sents an  extraordinary  and  novel  spectacle,  for  it 
sometimes  consists  of  States,  municipal  authorities, 
private  individuals,  and  every  sort  and  kind  of 
national  group,  society,  and  association.  The 
most  striking  example  of  this  new  type  and  ex- 
periment in  human  co-operation  is  the  Interna- 
tional Association  to  Combat  Unemployment 
(Association  Internationale  pour  la  Lutte  contre 
le  Chomage),  which  numbers  among  its  members 
eight  Governments,  seventeen  national  official 
bodies,  eight  provinces,  two  federations  of  towns, 
fifty-nine  towns,  fourteen  official  municipal  bodies, 
three  federations  nationales  de  placements,  twelve 
bourses  de  travail,  twelve  fonds  de  chomage,  three 
international  associations,  fifteen  scientific  socie- 
ties, six  national  federations  of  employers,  three 
professional  federations,  four  local  federations, 
thirty  Labor  federations,  and  individuals  belong- 
ing to  twenty-three  different  countries. 

The  fact  that  these  associations  are  voluntary 
should  not  blind  anyone  to  the  importance  of  this 
new  phenomenon — the  gathering  together  into  a 
single  association  of  every  kind  of  human  organi- 

*  E.  g.,  thirty  countries  sent  official  representatives  to  the  sixth  Con- 
gress of  the  International  Association  for  Testing  Materials,  and  twenty- 
nine  Governments  contributed  to  the  finances  of  the  Association  Inter- 
nationale du  Froid. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  171 

zation.  The  real  difficulty  with  which  inter- 
nationalism has  to  contend  is  the  extreme  com- 
plication and  ramification  of  international  inter- 
ests. Even  within  the  boundaries  of  a  single 
country  any  question  of  government  affects  a  vast 
number  of  different  individuals  and  groups  of 
individuals,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  regular  organs 
of  even  national  government  are  far  too  simple 
and  rigidly  set  to  allow  adequate  representation 
to  these  heterogeneous  groups  and  their  interests 
in  our  tangled  modern  world.  A  measure  intro- 
duced into  the  House  of  Commons  to-day  affects 
millions  of  people,  not  only  as  individuals,  but  as 
members  of  small  and  large  groups  and  organiza- 
tions, municipalities,  churches,  trade  unions,  fed- 
erations of  employers,  co-operative  societies,  clubs, 
associations,  etc.  A  member  of  Parliament  is 
physically  and  mentally  unable  to  represent  the 
net  views  of  constituents  regimented  in  such 
diverse  ways,  and  we  are  faced  with  a  serious  gap 
between  the  organization  of  life  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  our  government.  Representation  is  still 
based  upon  geography,  which  used  to  be  the  most 
important  thing  in  a  man's  life — for  it  determined 
to  a  great  extent  his  position  in  society — but  it  is 
now  among  the  least  important.  It  is  interesting 
to  see  how  in  national  government  tentative 
measures  are  being  taken  to  bridge  this  gap. 
When  a  Bill  is  being  passed  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons it  is  customary  now  for  Ministers  to  confer 
with  all  kinds  of  groups  and  organizations  and 
classes,  either  in  deputations  or  regular  confer- 


172  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

ences.  At  these  conferences  of  bankers,  shipown- 
ers, federations  of  employers,  trade  unions,  etc., 
pledges  are  given  or  extracted  which  materially 
affect  the  proposed  legislation.  Members  of  Par- 
liament often  complain  that  information  is  given 
to  such  groups  which  should  rightly  be  first  given 
to  Parliament,  and  that  the  Government  makes 
"concessions"  to  such  groups  behind  the  back  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  This  is  true;  but  the 
real  meaning  of  the  fact  is  that  here  we  have  the 
beginning  of  social  group — or  class — representa- 
tion in  national  government,  which  is  absolutely 
essential  if  the  gap  between  the  organization  of 
our  life  and  the  organization  of  our  Government 
is  to  be  filled  in. 

If  this  be  true  of  national  government,  it  is  far 
more  true  of  international  government.  As  soon 
as  any  attempt  is  made  to  deal  with  unemploy- 
ment, for  example,  it  becomes  clear  that  this  is 
not  merely  a  national  but  an  international  ques- 
tion. Its  ramifications  touch  the  interests  of  a 
vast  number  of  national  and  international  groups, 
States,  municipalities,  employers,  workers,  statis- 
ticians, economists.  The  whole  question  of  emi- 
gration and  immigration,  with  its  accretions  of 
political  and  racial  controversy,  is  involved,  no 
less  than  the  fluidity  of  labor  and  the  maintenance 
of  trade-union  regulations.  It  is  a  question  which 
cannot  be  adequately  dealt  with  as  one  merely 
between  the  Governments  of  independent  sover- 
eign States,  nor  as  one  merely  of  economic  interest 
between  capital  and  labor.  If  the  political  and 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  173 

racial  interests  are  in  some  cases  nationally  verti- 
cal, the  economic  are  internationally  horizontal. 
These  criss-crossing  interests  can  only  be  recon- 
ciled into  a  harmonious  pattern  if  that  pattern 
can  be  worked  out  by  study  and  discussion  in  an 
international  body  composed  of  State,  town,  capi- 
talist, worker,  and  scientist.  That  is  what  P  Asso- 
ciation Internationale  pour  la  Lutte  contre  le 
Chomage  and  several  other  international  associa- 
tions have  spontaneously  achieved. 

How  such  International  Associations  in  many 
cases  have  resulted  in  the  regulation  of  relations 
between  States  and  other  international  groups  by 
agreement  will  be  shown  in  detail  in  the  following 
chapters.  Here  it  will  be  useful  to  give  a  brief 
and  general  indication  of  the  nature  of  this  tend- 
ency. In  the  first  place,  over  and  over  again 
in  them  is  to  be  found  the  source  of  international 
legislation  proper.  It  is  in  them  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  international  interests  and  of  the 
inconvenience  of  divergence  in  national  laws  and 
customs  becomes  articulate.  The  individuals  or 
groups  of  individuals  interested,  whether  traders 
or  workers  or  artists  or  scientists,  become  aware 
of  the  necessity  of  International  Government,  and 
set  themselves  to  working  out  practical  methods 
of  establishing  it.  Many  of  the  diplomatic  con- 
ventions establishing  the  Public  International 
Unions,  dealt  with  above,  and  many  conventions 
which  have  unified  the  Laws  and  Administrations 
of  States  have  in  this  way  originated  in  and  been 
worked  out  by  international  associations.  Thus, 


174  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  Metric  Union  was  due  to  action  taken  by  the 
International  Congress  of  Weights,  Measures,  and 
Moneys  in  1867,  and  of  the  International  Asso- 
ciation for  the  Measure  of  the  Degree  in  Europe; 
the  Copyrights  Conventions  of  1886,  1888,  etc., 
which  established  the  International  Union  and 
Bureau  of  Literary  and  Artistic  Property,  orig- 
inated in  the  International  Literary  and  Artistic 
Association  founded  in  1878  by  Victor  Hugo;  the 
Conventions  of  1910,  which  have  established  a 
uniform  commercial  law  of  salvage  and  collisions 
at  sea  for  practically  the  whole  world,  were  first 
worked  out  in  the  International  Maritime  Com- 
mittee. 

But  these  associations  of  individuals  or  groups 
of  individuals  belonging  to  different  countries  are 
not  only  the  initiators  of  agreements  between 
States,  establishing  international  administration 
or  regulating  the  relations  of  States  in  other  ways, 
they  are  themselves  often  organs  of  International 
Government.  Whenever  they  are  representative, 
that  is  to  say,  whenever  they  bring  together 
groups  which  in  each  country  really  control  or 
influence  some  department  of  human  life,  whether 
it  be  science  or  education  or  commerce  or  labor, 
the  agreements  arrived  at  in  the  association  ac- 
tually regulate  the  relations  between  the  national 
groups  or  substitute  for  the  different  national 
customs,  methods,  or  institutions  of  the  groups 
one  international  method,  custom,  or  institution. 
Many  of  the  international  associations  are  com- 
posed, as  their  titles  show,  of  amiable  cranks  and 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  175 

enthusiasts  who  live  so  far  ahead  of  their  age  that 
they  have  little  or  no  influence  upon  it,  but  many 
others  are  fully  representative  in  this  sense.  The 
International  Association  of  Academies,  for  exam- 
ple, is  a  body  composed  of  the  chief  scientific 
societies  of  all  the  important  countries  of  the 
world;  the  Congres  international  des  Ephemerides 
astronomiques  in  1911  united  in  one  body  the 
directors  of  practically  all  the  astronomical  observ- 
atories of  the  world.  The  object  of  the  former, 
according  to  its  statutes,  is  to  prepare  or  initiate 
scientific  work  and  to  facilitate  scientific  relations 
between  countries;  the  latter,  by  agreements  em- 
bodied in  resolutions,  unified  methods  of  astro- 
nomical work  and  observation  in  the  different 
countries.  By  these  two  representative  associa- 
tions, therefore,  first  science  generally  and  then 
a  highly-specialized  department  of  science  are 
clearly  being  internationalized  or  subjected  to 
international  rather  than  national  regulation.  Or, 
again,  take  two  associations  of  a  very  different 
kind,  the  International  Association  for  the  Testing 
of  Materials  and  a  great  International  Labor 
federation  like  the  International  Metal  Workers' 
Federation.  The  first,  with  some  3,000  members 
in  all  the  great  industrial  countries  of  the  world, 
is  engaged  in  unifying  methods  of  testing  mate- 
rials. Its  members  are  engaged  in  the  practical 
prosecution  of  industry;  the  work  of  their  asso- 
ciation and  the  agreements  embodied  in  their 
resolutions  tend  to  establish  international  stand- 
ards of  industrial  materials,  metals,  cements, 


176  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

stone,  and  other  products.  Similar  associations 
are  in  almost  every  department  of  industry  and 
commerce  establishing,  by  similar  international 
agreements  regarding  analysis  or  methods  of 
production  of  commercial  products,  international 
rather  than  national  standards  of  production.  In 
other  words,  the  kinds  of  things  which  we  use  and 
wear  and  eat  are  being  standardized  internationally 
by  international  agreement  between  the  producers. 
On  the  other  side,  the  labor  side  of  industry  and 
production,  we  find  all  the  great  metal  workers' 
trade  unions  of  the  world  united  for  international 
action  in  the  International  Metal  Workers'  Fed- 
eration. That  action  consists  in  an  attempt  to 
regulate  by  agreement  between  the  national 
groups  the  conditions  of  employment,  and  in 
particular  to  regulate  the  international  movements 
of  labor  in  the  metal  trades.  Such  international 
organization  of  labor  has  its  weak  points,  but,  as 
a  later  chapter  will  show,  it  has  already  succeeded 
to  some  extent  in  applying  International  Gov- 
ernment to  the  relations  (i)  of  employer  and 
worker,  and  (2)  of  the  different  national  groups  of 
workers. 

The  three  kinds  of  International  Organism  with 
which  we  have  so  far  dealt  are:  (i)  The  Diplo- 
matic Conference,  (2)  Permanent  Associations  of 
Governments  or  Administrations,  sometimes  called 
Public  International  Unions,  (3)  International 
Associations  of  which  the  members  are  individ- 
uals or  groups  of  individuals.  The  fourth  and 
last  kind  is  one  which  is  connected  only  with  a 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  177 

particular  department  of  life,  namely,  commerce, 
industry,  and  finance.  Everyone  has  heard  or 
read  such  phrases  as:  "Capital  is  international," 
or  "finance  is  international";  but  few  -people 
realize  the  extent  to  which  not  only  finance  but 
industry  has  been  internationalized  in  the  last 
100  years.  A  large  part  of  the  production  and 
distribution  of  commodities  throughout  the  world 
is  regulated  by  agreement  between  the  groups  of 
producers  and  suppliers  in  the  different  countries; 
in  other  words,  International  Government  has 
been  extensively  applied  to  national  and  inter- 
national trade.  A  study  of  this  phenomenon  is 
peculiarly  relevant,  because  this  regulation  of  re- 
lations by  agreement  has  appeared  spontaneously 
among  national  groups  engaged  in  competition  and 
in  a  sphere  of  life  where  national  interests  are 
always  assumed  to  be  most  violently  in  conflict. 
The  organisms  or  organization  through  which  this 
government  has  been  established  take  many  dif- 
ferent forms.  In  the  simplest  form  there  is  merely 
an  agreement  between  national  companies  or  in- 
dividual producers  and  traders — each  an  "inde- 
pendent sovereign"  commercial  or  industrial  entity 
— to  regulate  competition  or  production  or  price 
or  to  divide  the  world  into  "markets."  In  other 
cases  the  national  groups  surrender  some  of  their 
independence  and  sovereignty,  and  form  inter- 
national trusts  and  cartels,  which  may  be  very 
elaborate  international  organisms;  in  others,  again, 
the  groups  merge  their  own  individuality  com- 
pletely in  one  International  Company,  which 


178  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

would  answer  in  the  political  sphere  to  an  Inter- 
national State.  Details  will  be  found  in  Chapter 
VI  of  many  of  these  different  types  and  of  the 
functions  which  they  have  performed. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  INTERNATIONALIZATION  OF  ADMINISTRATION 

ADMINISTRATION  must  be  regarded  as 
the  most  precious  flower  and  fruit,  the 
essential  mark  and  prerogative  of  the  in- 
dependent, sovereign  State.  It  is,  then,  not  won- 
derful that  those  who  regard  such  a  State  as  an 
isolated  entity,  a  water-tight  compartment  of 
"national  interests,"  should  postulate  the  abso- 
lute independence  of  its  administration  as  a  con- 
dition of  its  existence  as  a  State.  This  is  well 
understood  in  those  subterranean  regions  where 
the  evil  spirits  guide  diplomatists  toward  inevi- 
table war.  They  know  that,  whatever  the  real 
causes  which  would  induce  civilized  men  to  mas- 
sacre one  another  by  the  hundred  thousand,  the 
men  themselves  must  believe  that  a  demand  had 
been  made  by  one  independent  sovereign  State  to 
interfere  in  the  administration  of  another  inde- 
pendent sovereign  State  before  the  process  could 
begin.  Nothing  could  make  a  war  between  Aus- 
trians  and  Serbians  so  inevitable  as  a  demand  on 
the  part  of  "Austria"  to  interfere  in  the  admin- 
istration of  "Serbia." 

That  Austria's  demand  was  unjustifiable  cannot 
alter  the  fact  that  this  conception  of  the  State 
and  of  administration  is  false,  for  it  does  not 

179 


180  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

mirror  the  realities  of  life  and  the  world  as  they 
exist  to-day.  History  is  continually  getting  ahead 
of  the  conceptions  -and  beliefs  of  human  beings, 
including  diplomatists  and  international  lawyers; 
and  the  catastrophes  and  miseries  of  humanity 
are  often  caused  by  the  attempt  to  apply  these 
obsolete  conceptions  and  beliefs  to  a  world  which 
they  no  longer  fit.  Such  is  the  present  catas- 
trophe, and  it  shows  that  either  our  conceptions 
must  go  forward  and  conform  with  an  advanced 
world,  or  the  world  will  be  dragged  back  into  line 
with  our  primitive  beliefs. 

Administration,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  is  part  of 
national  government.  In  most  civilized  countries 
the  maintenance  of  law  and  order,  the  regulation 
of  health  and  sanitation,  of  means  of  communica- 
tion, of  many  commercial  and  industrial  relations 
and  operations,  is  intrusted  to  or  controlled  by 
the  State.  All  the  practical  steps  which  from  day 
to  day  the  State  takes  to  maintain  law  and  order, 
and  to  regulate  health  or  the  dispatch  of  telegrams 
or  the  coinage  and  issue  of  money,  are  part  of  the 
administrative  function  of  State  government. 
These  functions  are  not  the  result  of  any  sudden 
discovery,  of  any  new  theory  or  crank;  they  have 
grown  naturally  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  changing 
society.  Life  as  we  know  it  in  cities  like  London 
and  New  York — where  men  live  so  close  that  they 
have  had  to  tunnel  into  the  earth  in  order  to  be 
able  to  move  about,  and  build  high  into  the  air  in 
order  to  find  room  to  sleep — would  be  impossible 
if  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order  were  left  in 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  181 

the  hands  of  the  individual,  or  to  any  organization 
not  coextensive  with  the  whole  population.  But 
precisely  these  latter  conditions  exist  where,  as  in 
Arabia,  the  normal  life  of  society  is  different,  and 
can  proceed  with  every  man  a  law  unto  himself. 
And  the  same  is  true,  though  perhaps  not  quite  so 
obviously,  of  the  State  organization  of  the  medium 
of  exchange  or  postal  communications.  Certainly 
modern  industry  and  commerce,  as  well  as  other 
sides  of  life,  could  not  exist  in  Great  Britain  with- 
out the  uniformity  of  organization  which  public 
administration  alone  can  give  to  our  currency  and 
post  office. 

The  infinite  complication  of  life  brought  State 
Socialism  into  existence;  immediately  men  began 
to  quarrel  about  its  theory.  But  while  they  were 
quarreling,  life  itself  was  moving  on  and  changing, 
and,  therefore,  calling  into  existence  something 
beyond  State  Socialism — the  beginnings  of  inter- 
State  Socialism.  The  needs  of  human  society-  in 
large  parts  of  the  earth  can  no  longer  be  met  by 
organization  rigidly  confined  to  administration  of 
independent  States.  In  innumerable  ways  the 
condition  of  society  in  England  is  so  dependent 
upon  that  of  society  in  Germany,  and  vice  versa, 
that  either  the  fabric  of  society  or  the  complete 
independence  of  German  and  British  administra- 
tion had  to  break  down.  In  the  years  between 
1815  and  1914  it  was  not  the  fabric  of  society,  but 
the  independence  of  States,  which,  in  fact,  gave 
way.  Take  the  case  of  trade  alone.  In  the  twelve 
months  before  the  war  the  peoples  of  the  two 


182  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

countries  exchanged  goods  the  value  of  which  was 
£120,000,000,  or  half  again  as  much  as  the  value 
of  our  whole  foreign  trade  in  1820.  In  the  same 
time  our  exports  to  and  imports  from  Asia 
amounted  to  £210,000,000,  or  more  than  150  per 
cent,  of  our  whole  export  and  import  trade  in 
1820.  It  requires  little  imagination  to  realize 
what  these  figures  mean  in  the  coming  and  going 
of  men  and  ships  between  the  different  countries, 
in  the  rapid  and  regular  dispatch  and  receipt  of 
telegrams  and  letters,  in  the  constant  and  smooth 
working  of  the  machinery  of  credit.  And  while 
the  diplomatists  and  three-quarters  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  civilized  countries,  deluded  by  the  fetish 
of  national  interests,  still  believe  in  the  absolute 
independence  of  the  individual  sovereign  State,  the 
most  subordinate  clerk  in  any  of  our  public  offices, 
if  he  paused  to  think  before  signing  his  name  to 
many  an  official  document  which  passes  across 
his  table,  would  see  in  it  how  impossible  the  in- 
tercommunication of  peoples  would  be  if  this  inde- 
pendence of  States  really  existed.  How  could  the 
German  and  the  Chinaman  buy  our  coal  and  our 
cotton  goods  to  the  value  of  millions  of  pounds 
per  annum,  how  could  we  buy  the  German's  iron 
and  the  Chinaman's  tea,  unless  the  uniformity  and 
regularity  and  certainty  of  postal  and  telegraphic 
communication  had  been  assured  by  international 
rather  than  national  administration?  And  how 
long  would  the  perpetual  coming  and  going  of 
our  ships  continue,  if  there  were  no  international 
regulation  and  administration  of  sanitation  and 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  183 

quarantine,  if  Asia  were  allowed  to  export  its 
plague  and  its  cholera,  and  European  countries 
were  allowed  to  import  them  as  freely  as  its  rice 
and  its  silks  and  its  spices? 

Here  are  international  interests  in  trade  and 
industry  and  public  health  to  which  all  purely 
national  interests  have,  in  fact,  had  to  give  way. 
As  a  result  of  international  agreements  between 
States,  two  processes  have  taken  place,  either 
international  administration  has  been  set  up  with 
international  administrative  organs,  or  the  several 
States  have  undertaken  to  introduce  uniformity 
into  their  several  administrations.  The  process  has 
been  applied  to  four  departments  of  life  and 
government:  (i)  Communications,  (2)  Public 
Health,  (3)  Industry  and  Commerce,  (4)  Morals 
and  Crime.  The  process  is,  as  I  have  said,  of 
very  recent  date,  and  it  has  been  checked  and 
thwarted  by  the  obstinate  affection  of  Foreign 
Offices  for  the  theories  of  "irreconcilable  national 
interests,"  and  of  the  absolute  independence  of 
national  government.  Nevertheless,  what  it  has 
achieved  is  of  so  great  an  importance  that  I  now 
propose  to  examine  in  detail  this  internationaliza- 
tion of  administration  in  the  four  departments  of  life. 
For  the  examination  will,  I  believe,  show,  first,  how 
much  has  been  accomplished  in  this  way  towards 
regulating  the  relations  of  States  and  administra- 
tions by  international  agreement,  and  second,  how 
the  establishment  of  such  International  Govern- 
ment for  the  sake  of  international  interests  has 
affected  particular  and  peculiar  national  interests. 


184  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

A. — COMMUNICATIONS 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  life  in  1900 
differs  enormously  more  from  life  in  1800  than 
life  in  1800  from  life  in  800.  This  rapid  revolu- 
tion has  been  made  possible  only  by  a  revolution 
in  communications.  The  civilizations  of  the  first 
1800  years  of  the  Christian  era  at  different  times 
rested  upon  the  Empire,  the  Church,  Feudalism, 
the  Land,  or  the  Hierarchy  of  Classes.  Our  civili- 
zation rests  ultimately  upon  the  Post,  the  Tele- 
graph, the  Telephone,  the  Railway,  the  Steam- 
ship, the  Motor  Car,  and  the  Aeroplane.  If  you 
cut  the  communications  of  Europe  we  should  fall 
back  plumb  in  twelve  months  from  the  2Oth 
century  to  the  loth.  But  these  communications 
are  international;  they  cease  to  exist  unless  they 
are  made  independent  of  the  frontiers  of  States. 
They  are  the  greatest  of  all  international  interests, 
and  they  cannot  perform  their  functions  without 
international  administration.  Consequently  we 
shall  find  that  the  most  complete  internationaliza- 
tion of  administration  has  occurred  in  the  case  of 
communications. 

Before  proceeding  to  show  how  this  has  in  detail 
been  accomplished,  there  is  one  point  of  great 
general  importance  which  should  be  noted.  Every- 
one can  see  that  the  interests  in  the  international 
uniformity  of  the  Postal  Services  are  international. 
"Of  course,"  it  will  be  said,  "it  is  to  the  interest 
of  every  nation  to  unify  the  administration  of  such 
services,  and  even  to  sacrifice  some  independence 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  185 

of  national  administration  in  order  to  obtain  this 
uniformity.  This  is  an  international  interest.  It 
is  also  in  the  interest  of  each  individual  nation. 
Therefore  there  is  no  sacrifice  of  national  interests 
in  taking  part  in  such  associations  as  the  Universal 
Postal  Union.  But  they  have  no  bearing  upon 
the  political  and  economic  problems  of  inter- 
national relations  in  which  great  national  interests 
are  involved."  Such  arguments  have,  in  fact, 
caused  the  importance  of  the  object-lessons  in 
International  Government  displayed  by  the  Pos- 
tal and  other  unions  to  be  ignored;  but,  despite 
their  superficial  plausibility,  they  are  good  ex- 
amples of  the  ignorance  and  confusion  of  thought 
which  prevail  on  the  subject  of  international 
relations. 

The  ordinary  view  is  that  national  interests 
demand  the  jealous  maintenance  of  complete  in- 
dependence of  government  for  each  State.  Here 
are  international  interests  so  compelling  that  they 
have  led  every  State  to  sacrifice  some  of  its  inde- 
pendence of  government.  The  fact  that  this  sac- 
rifice is  so  obviously  in  the  national  interests  only 
shows  more  clearly  the  falseness  of  the  ordinary 
view  of  national  interests  and  the  independence 
of  States.  But  it  is  historically  quite  untrue  that 
these  international  interests  are  so  completely  also 
national  interests  that  the  adoption  of  Interna- 
tional Government  for  their  regulation  did  not 
involve  the  sacrifice  of  what  are  ordinarily  thought 
of  as  "national  interests."  The  formation  of  the 
Postal  Union  was  delayed  because  France  refused 

14 


186  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

to  join  it,  believing  that  it  would  involve  a  sac- 
rifice of  her  peculiar  financial  interests.  Great 
Britain  refused  for  some  time  to  enter  the  Radio- 
telegraphic  Union  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
involve  the  sacrifice  of  vital  Imperial  interests, 
just  as  she  refused  for  long  to  sign  any  general 
Sanitary  Convention  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
involve  the  sacrifice  of  interests  vital  to  her  as 
a  great  maritime  Power  with  a  great  carrying 
trade.  And  when  these  associations  of  States  and 
administrations  have  been  formed  and  inter- 
national administration  is  operating,  within  the 
organizations  or  associations  themselves,  diverse 
"national  interests"  are,  as  we  shall  see,  continu- 
ally showing  themselves.  Within  the  Postal  Union 
the  interests  of  Germany  and  Britain  are  no  more 
identical  than  they  were  in  the  Algeciras  Confer- 
ence. All  government  which  is  regulation  of 
relations  through  agreement  involves  compromise, 
a  give  and  take  between  not  identical  interests. 
It  is  sheer  confusion  of  thought  which  leads  people 
to  believe  that  such  compromise  is  rational  when 
applied  to  so  useful  and  palpable  a  thing  as  a 
national  postage  stamp,  but  would  be  national 
suicide  if  extended  to  a  priceless  but  impalpable 
thing  like  national  prestige. 

(i)   The  Universal  Postal  Union 

The  Universal  Postal  Union  after  a  life  of  over 
forty  years  remains  the  most  complete  and  im- 
portant example  of  international  administration. 
As  soon  as  economic  and  commercial  relations  on 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  187 

a  large  scale  became  possible — and  this  happened 
in  the  nineteenth  century — in  order  that  that  pos- 
sibility might  be  utilized,  some  international  regu- 
lation of  postal  communications  between  countries 
was  necessary.  During  the  first  half  of  the  cen- 
tury this  regulation  was  attempted,  and  this 
attempt  was  made  strictly  in  accordance  with  the 
ordinary  theory  of  the  absolute  independence  of 
the  independent  sovereign  State.  Individual  States 
concluded  treaties  with  one  another,  regulating 
the  interchange  of  correspondence  between  them. 
A  considerable  number  of  such  treaties  were  made, 
and  they  were  made  in  accordance  with  the  ordi- 
nary "diplomatic"  theory  of  national  interests. 
The  object  of  State  A  in  concluding  a  postal  treaty 
with  State  B  was  to  advance  the  interests  of  A 
at  the  expense  of  B,  and  the  object  of  B  was  to 
advance  the  interests  of  B  at  the  expense  of  A. 
The  aim  of  these  treaties  was  not  to  advance  the 
international  interest  of  international  communica- 
tion, but  "to  make  the  foreigner  pay." 

This  system,  however  advantageous  it  may  have 
been  to  the  State,  was  by  no  means  satisfactory  to 
its  citizens.  Making  the  foreigner  pay  is  a  game 
at  which  two  can  play,  at  any  rate  where  a  Postal 
Convention  is  concerned.  The  foreigner  did  pay, 
but,  as  everyone  was  a  foreigner,  everyone  paid 
— ridiculously  high  foreign  postage  rates.  The 
rates  were  also  uncertain,  extremely  variable,  and 
could  only  be  ascertained  in  many  cases  by  com- 
plicated mathematical  calculation.  They  were 
made  up  of  a  payment  to  the  country  of  dispatch, 


188  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

a  payment  to  the  country  of  destination,  a  pay- 
ment to  any  intermediate  country  through  which 
the  letter  had  to  be  transmitted,  and  a  payment 
for  sea  transit.  For  instance,  there  were  three 
different  rates  between  Germany  and  Austria,  and 
a  business  man  sending  a  letter  from,  the  United 
States  to  Australia  was  confronted  with  the  fact, 
arrived  at  after  some  calculation,  that  the  postage 
would  be  5  cents,  33  cents,  45  cents,  60  cents,  or 
$1.02  per  ]/2  oz.,  according  to  the  route  by  which 
it  was  sent.* 

After  a  system  of  this  kind  had  been  tried  for 
some  fifty  or  sixty  years,  it  became  clear  that  the 
development  of  modern  commerce  required  an 
attempt  to  be  made  to  organize  international  pos- 
tal relations  on  uniform  principles.  In  1863,  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  Postmaster-General  of  the 
United  States,  fifteen  States  sent  delegates  to  a 
Conference  in  Paris,  at  which  agreement  upon 
certain  general  principles  was  found  possible. 
The  principles  were,  however,  not  made  obliga- 
tory. Meanwhile,  the  International  Telegraph 
Convention,  the  basis  of  the  Telegraphic  Union, 
had  been  signed  in  1865,  so  that  everything  was 
conspiring  to  push  the  several  States  into  a  union 
for  the  purposes  of  postal  communication.  The 
final  impetus  came  from  Dr.  Von  Stephan,  the 
Director-General  of  Posts  of  the  North  German 
Confederation,  who,  in  1868,  having  just  success- 
fully introduced  unification  of  postal  administra- 


*  Reinsch,  Public  International  Unions. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  189 

tions  in  the  German  States,  published  a  scheme 
for  a  similar  unification  in  the  greater  international 
world.  The  proposal  met  with  considerable  hos- 
tility in  nearly  all  countries.  There  were  people 
who  argued  that  national  interests  would  suffer 
financially,  when  they  thought  of  the  few  millions 
of  revenue  which  they  believed  they  "made  the 
foreigner  pay":  they  forgot  the  few  millions  of 
revenue  which  the  foreigner  believed  that  he 
"made  the  foreigner  pay,"  and  they  overlooked 
the  many  millions  from  which  efficient  interna- 
tional communications  would  flow  into  the  national 
income  from  foreign  trade.  Then,  too,  it  is  in- 
teresting to  notice  that  there  were  other  people 
who  foresaw  in  a  Postal  Union  just  those  dangers 
to  the  independence  and  sovereignty  of  the  State 
which  we  are  told  to-day  threaten  us  from  any 
proposal  which  would  make  for  International  Gov- 
ernment.* Finally,  those  national  interests  of 
France,  which,  in  the  region  of  politics,  the  French 
nation  believed  at  the  time  that  they  were  ad- 
vancing by  fighting  the  German  nation  in  the 
Franco-German  War,  intervened  and  proved  con- 
clusively to  the  French  that  they  had  no  national 
interest  in  international  communications. 

But,  despite  of  wars  and  independent  sovereign 
States,  the  world  of  everyday  life  and  everyday 
men  proceeds  to  develop  in  its  own  way.  By 
1874  the  pressure  of  this  development  had  over- 
come all  obstacles,  and  on  the  invitation  of  the 

*  "Nationalists  of  all  countries  saw  in  the  proposal  a  menace  to  national 
sentiment  and  national  glory." — The  Post  Office  and  Its  Story,  by  E.  Bennett. 


190  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Swiss  Federal  Council  and  the  suggestion  of  the 
German  Government,  a  Postal  Congress,  at  which 
twenty-two  States  were  represented,  met  at  Berne. 
As  a  result,  the  General  Postal  Union — which  in 
1878  became  the  Universal  Postal  Union — was 
formed  by  a  Treaty  which  was  ratified  and  came 
into  force  on  July  I,  1875.  Since  that  date  the 
Governments  of  practically  all  civilized  and  even  un- 
civilized countries  have  adhered  to  the  Convention 
of  the  Union,  so  that  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  international  postal  communication 
throughout  the  world  is  regulated  by  its  provisions. 
The  Universal  Postal  Union  establishes  an 
elaborate  form  of  International  Government,  and 
I  propose,  therefore,  first  to  examine  in  detail  its 
constitution,  and  then  to  show  how  in  practice 
that  constitution  has  worked.  The  constitution 
of  the  Union  is  contained  in  a  Convention  and  a 
Reglement;  the  provisions  of  the  former  establish 
the  organs  of  government,  and,  roughly,  lay  down 
the  fundamental  principles  and  the  more  impor- 
tant details  of  the  administration  to  be  applied  to 
international  postage;  the  provisions  of  the  latter 
are  concerned  solely  with  the  details  of  that 
administration.  These  provisions  apply  to  letters, 
post  cards,  printed  papers  of  every  kind,  commer- 
cial papers,  and  samples  entering  into  the  inter- 
national service.  The  most  important  of  them 
contained  in  the  Convention  *  are  as  follows: — 


*  The  provisions  which  follow  are  those  contained  in  the  most  recent 
Convention  and  Reglement  concluded  at  the  last  Congress  of  the  Union 
held  at  Rome  in  1906. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  191 

1.  The   countries   in   the  Union  form  a   single 
postal  territory  for  exchange  of  correspondence. 

2.  Freedom  of  transit  is  guaranteed  throughout 
the  territory  of  the  Union.     The  transit  charges 
are  fixed  according  to  the  total  net  weight  and 
according  to  the  mileage  of  transit.     The  basis  for 
charges  is  obtained  by  weighing  mails  during  four 
weeks  every  six  years. 

3.  Uniform  postal  rates  for  foreign  correspond- 
ence are  fixed. 

4.  In  case  of  loss,  the  responsibility  of  Admin- 
istrations is  established. 

5.  Acceptance  for  transit  through  the  post  of 
certain  articles  is  forbidden. 

6.  Restricted   unions   for   special   purposes   are 
allowed. 

7.  Arbitration  in  disputes  between  Administra- 
tions is  provided  for. 

Further,  the  Convention  and  the  Reglement 
together  prescribe  limits  of  weight  and  size  of 
postal  matter,  govern  the  charges  to  the  public 
for  postage,  registration,  express  delivery,  collec- 
tion of  value  on  delivery,  and  coupons  for  the 
prepayment  of  reply  postage.  They  also  lay  down 
rules  for  the  treatment  of  letters,  etc.,  for  the 
making  up  of  mails,  for  the  transport  of  mails,  for 
the  accounting  in  respect  of  intermediary  transport 
services,  and  for  the  settlement  through  a  Central 
Clearing  House  of  such  accounts  as  the  Admin- 
istrations mutually  agree  to  liquidate  in  this 
manner. 

The  original   Convention   also  established  the 


192  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

following  three  organs  of  International  Govern- 
ment :— 

1.  The  Congress  of  plenipotentiaries,  which  is  to 
meet  every  five  *  years  or  when  demand  is  made 
by  two-thirds  of  the  Governments.     Each  coun- 
try has  one  vote.     The  Congress  has  power  to 
alter   or   amend   both   the    Convention   and   the 
Reglement,  and  a  majority  vote  of  the  delegates 
is  sufficient  to  secure  the  amendment  of  any  clause 
of  either  or  the  insertion  of  a  new  clause.     The 
Convention   and  Reglement,   when   amended  by 
the  Congress,  is  signed  by  each  delegate,  and  re- 
quires, like  other  diplomatic  instruments,  subse- 
quent ratification  by  the  several  Governments. 

2.  The  Conference  of  Delegates  of  Administra- 
tions.— It  is  to  meet  on  the  demand  of  two-thirds 
of  the  Administrations  when  any  question  of  minor 
importance  has  to  be  considered.     Its  rules  of  pro- 
cedure are  similar  to  those  of  the  Congress. 

3.  The  International  Bureau. — This  is  a  perma- 
nent administrative  organ,  maintained  under  the 
supervision  of  the  Swiss  Postal  Union  at  Berne. 
Its  expenses  are  shared  among  the  Administra- 
tions, which  are  divided  for  this  purpose  into  seven 
classes.     Each  member  of  the  first  class  contributes 
25  units,  and  members  of  the  other  classes  con- 
tribute smaller  proportions.     The  different  coun- 
tries, at  the  time  of  their  entry  into  the  Union, 
come  to  an  agreement  with  the  Swiss  Government 
as   to   their   classification.     The   Bureau    collects, 

"This   provision   is    not   strictly   observed    in   practice.    The   interval 
between  the  last  two  Congresses  was  nine  years. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  193 

publishes,  and  distributes  information,  circulates 
proposals,  and  notifies  alterations  adopted;  pub- 
lishes a  journal  in  three  languages;  acts  as  a 
Clearing  House  for  the  settlement  of  accounts; 
arranges  for  the  manufacture  and  supply  of  reply- 
coupons;  gives  an  opinion  upon  questions  in  dis- 
pute at  the  request  of  the  parties  concerned. 

The  Convention  provides  a  further  procedure  for 
obtaining  decisions  as  to  the  government  of  the 
Union.  In  the  intervals  between  the  meetings  of 
Congresses  or  Conferences,  proposals  concerning 
the  working  of  the  Union  or  the  amendment  of  the 
Convention  or  Reglement  may  be  made  by  any 
Administration  (provided  that  they  are  supported 
by  at  least  two  others)  through  the  International 
Bureau.  Observations  are  first  invited.  The  an- 
swers received  are  tabulated  and  circulated,  and 
the  Administrations  are  then  asked  to  vote  either 
for  or  against  the  proposal.  The  following  are  the 
rules  *  as  to  the  proportion  of  votes  which  pro- 
posals must  obtain  in  order  to  become  binding: — 

(a)  In  the  case  of  modification  of  16  out  of  39 
articles  of  the  Convention,  or  the  addition  of  new 
stipulations,  the  voting  must  be  unanimous. 

(b)  In  the  case  of  modification  of  the  other  13 
articles,  a  two-thirds  majority  of  votes  is  required. 

(c)  In  other  cases  (e.  g.,  where  the  question  is 
one  of  interpretation)  a  simple  majority  suffices. 
Such  is  the  constitution  of  the  Universal  Postal 
Union  in  outline.     But  its  full  significance  can 

*  These  are  taken  partly  from  the  latest  Convention  and  partly  from 
the  actual  practice  of  the  Union. 


194  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

only  be  understood  by  an  examination  of  how  it 
works  in  practice,  for  all  human  organizations  will 
be  found  to  differ  considerably  in  practice  from 
what  they  appear  to  be  in  the  skeletons  of  their 
paper  constitutions.  First,  it  should  be  observed 
that  the  Union  has  successfully  applied  complete 
International  Government  to  all  those  relations  of 
States  which  are  connected  with  postal  communi- 
cations. It  has  done  so  by  forming  a  Union  of 
Postal  Administrations.  And  in  doing  so,  how- 
ever much  in  theory  and  on  paper  each  State  has 
guarded  itself,  actually  it  has  destroyed  the  in- 
dependency and  sovereignty  of  the  State  over  its 
own  administration  of  the  foreign  post.  The  dele- 
gates who  go  to  the  Congresses  are  delegates  from 
the  national  Administrations.  They  are,  of  course, 
instructed  by  their  Governments  as  to  how  they 
shall  vote  upon  important  matters.  But  when 
they  have  recorded  their  vote,  their  Administra- 
tion is  upon  every  question  bound  by  the  decision 
of  the  majority  of  Administrations  voting.*  It 
is  true  that  in  theory  the  delegate  might  refuse  to 
sign  the  Convention,  or,  even  if  he  signed  it,  his 
Government  might  refuse  to  ratify  it.  In  prac- 
tice, neither  of  these  courses  is  ever  contemplated, 
simply  because  our  Governments  have  accepted 

*  Writers  on  the  subject  do  not  seem  to  realize  that  in  the  Congress 
a  majority  vote  is  sufficient  in  every  case  to  make  a  decision  binding. 
Thus,  Professor  Reinsch  (Public  International  Unions,  p.  26)  seems  to 
imply  that  fifteen  articles  of  the  Convention  require  unanimity  of  votes 
for  their  modification  by  the  Congress.  But  this  really  refers  only  to  the 
procedure  for  amending  the  Convention  in  the  intervals  between  Con- 
gresses. The  Congress  itself  always  decides  by  a  majority  vote. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  195 

International  Government  for  this  department  of 
life.  At  one  Congress  the  majority  of  the  dele- 
gates were  in  favor  of  a  change  in  a  foreign  postage 
rate.  The  French  Government  was  strongly  op- 
posed to  any  change,  and  the  French  delegate 
announced  that  he  would  not  only  vote  against, 
but  refuse  to  accept  it.  The  proposed  change  ob- 
tained a  majority  of  the  votes;  the  new  Conven- 
tion was  signed  by  the  French  delegate  and  rati- 
fied by  his  Government;  and  the  rate  was  changed. 
Thus,  the  French  Government  was  faced  by  the 
alternative  of  withdrawing  from  the  Union  and 
asserting  the  independence  of  its  own  Administra- 
tion, or  of  surrendering  its  independence  for  the 
advantages  of  International  Government.  It  did 
not  hesitate  twenty-four  hours  to  choose  the  latter. 
In  fact,  so  far  has  the  surrender  of  independence  to 
International  Government  gone  in  the  Union,  that 
the  theoretical  right  of  the  State  to  refuse  ratifi- 
cation to  the  Convention  and  Reglement  as  voted 
at  a  Congress  in  practice  hardly  exists.  The 
Administrations,  adhering  to  the  Union,  never 
wait  for  formal  ratification  before  putting  the  new 
regulations  into  operation,  and  the  decisions  of  a 
Postal  Congress  are  acted  upon  whether  they  are 
ratified  or  not. 

The  result  is  that  the  nations  of  the  whole  world 
have  for  everything  connected  with  the  inter- 
national exchange  of  letters  and  other  postal  mat- 
ter submitted  to  International  Government.  Each 
national  Administration  can  no  longer  determine 
the  rates  it  will  charge,  the  matter  which  it  will  or 


196  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

will  not  receive,  or  the  methods  on  which  it  will 
conduct  the  foreign  postal  service.  On  all  these 
subjects  the  national  Administration  is  in  practice 
bound  to  accept  the  decision  of  the  majority  of  the 
Administrations  adhering  to  the  Union.  In  other 
words,  the  administration  of  postal  communica- 
tion between  States  has  been  internationalized. 

There  is  one  minor  point  as  to  the  development 
of  the  Union  which  is  worth  recording,  because  it 
has  not  been  noticed  or  understood  *  by  writers 
on  the  subject.  The  framers  of  the  constitution 
gave  the  Union  two  legislative  organs,  the  Con- 
gress and  the  Conference,  and  it  was  clearly  their 
intention  that  the  former  should  meet  periodically 
to  revise  the  Convention  and  Reglement,  and  be 
summoned  to  settle  any  matter  of  importance, 
while  the  latter  should  be  called  together  when  any 
question  of  minor  importance  had  to  be  decided. 
But  in  practice  the  Union  now  acts  only  through 
the  one  organ,  the  Congress,  and  the  Conference 
has  ceased  to  exist.  A  Conference  was  held  once 
in  1876,  and  that  is,  I  believe,  the  one  solitary  in- 
stance in  the  whole  history  of  the  Postal  Union. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  Any  question  of  small  im- 
portance that  arises  in  the  interval  between  Con- 
gresses can  far  more  conveniently  be  disposed  of 
by  circulation  of  the  proposal  to  the  Administra- 


*  Public  International  Unions,  by  Professor  Reinsch,  p.  25: — "The  Con- 
gress is  composed  of  plenipotentiaries  empowered  to  introduce  changes 
both  in  the  Convention  and  Reglement;  whereas  the  Conference  is  an 
administrative  body,  which  deals  only  with  the  latter."  The  statement  is 
not,  it  will  be  seen,  accurate. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  197 

tions  by  the  procedure  described  above  than  by 
calling  a  Conference.  Hence,  in  practice  the 
Union  works  through  two,  not  three,  organs, 
namely,  the  Congress  and  the  Bureau. 

We  have  seen  that  the  adherence  of  a  State  to 
the  Postal  Convention  results  in  a  surrender  of  its 
independence  and  sovereignty  in  the  realm  of 
postal  communications,  in  its  voluntary  submission 
to  International  Government.*  The  most  inter- 
esting question  raised  by  this  event  is :  What  have 
been  the  practical  effects  of  this  surrender  and 
submission?  Have  they  resulted  in  ruin  and  dis- 
aster to  the  fabric  of  States  and  of  international 
society?  And  have  they  involved,  as  all  the  doc- 
trines of  all  the  patriots  would  lead  us  to  expect, 
the  surrender  of  national  interests?  It  may  be 
said  at  once  that  none  of  these  terrible  disasters 
appears  to  have  resulted.  The  Postal  Union,  hav- 
ing by  its  birth  effected  a  revolution  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  society  of  nations,  has  had  a  forty 
years'  history  of  placid  obscurity,  unworthy  of  the 
notice  of  patriots,  and  rarely  recognized  as  a 
herald  of  the  Millennium  by  an  occasional  pacifist. 

Yet  a  very  little  enquiry  would  show  that  the 
problem  of  conflicting  national  interests  contin- 


*  It  is  safer  to  forestall  criticism  by  remarking  that  a  good  case  could 
be  made  out  theoretically  for  the  assertion  that  the  independence  and  sov- 
ereignty of  the  State  are  not  impaired  by  adherence.  Personally,  I  believe 
that  a  view  of  independence  and  sovereignty  which  implies  that  they  are 
impaired  by  voluntary  submission  to  international  government  is  in  need 
of  revision.  But  that  cannot  alter  the  fact  that  the  practical  working  of 
the  Union  is  not  compatible  with  the  independence  and  sovereignty  of  a 
State  as  they  are  ordinarily  conceived  (vide  supra). 


198  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

ually  arises  and  is  continually  being  solved  by 
agreement  within  the  Union.  The  interests  of  all 
the  nations  of  the  world  are  no  more  identical  in 
postal  communication  than  they  are  in  the  ex- 
ploitation of  Morocco.  And  it  might  even  be 
argued  that  the  interests  involved  in  the  methods 
of  such  communication  are  no  less  "vital"  than 
those  involved  in  the  rights  of  a  few  capitalists  to 
build  bridges  for,  sell  gramophones  to,  or  work  the 
mines  of  some  African  potentate.  At  any  rate,  as 
soon  as  the  Postal  Union  began  to  devise  a  uni- 
form system  of  international  postal  administration, 
it  found  that  the  national  interests  in  that  admin- 
istration differed  profoundly.  I  propose  to  show 
briefly  how  agreement  has  succeeded  or  failed  to 
harmonize  such  conflicting  interests. 

The  Union  was  very  soon  faced  with  the  diffi- 
culty, discussed  in  an  early  part  of  this  book,  of 
applying  International  Government  to  States,  each 
of  which  ranks  as  a  unit  of  government,  but  which 
vary  enormously  in  size  and  importance.  The 
interests  of  the  forty  million  Frenchmen,  repre- 
sented by  the  French  Postal  Administration,  are 
certainly  greater  in  the  international  post  than  the 
ten  million  Persians,  represented  by  the  Persian 
Postal  Administration,  especially  when  the  differ- 
ence of  French  and 'Persian  societies  is  taken  into 
consideration.  In  Part  I  of  this  book,  in  con- 
sidering a  particular  problem  of  International 
Government,  I  argued  that  if  in  such  circumstances 
the  same  voting  power  were  given  to  both  nations, 
irrespective  of  the  difference  in  the  interests  which 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  199 

each  had  at  stake,  the  system  would  in  practice 
be  found  unworkable.  At  first  sight  this  argu- 
ment would  seem  to  be  disproved  by  the  fact  that 
the  Postal  Convention  does  give  one  vote  to  each 
State,  no  matter  what  its  size  or  the  size  of  its 
interests  may  be.  But  a  closer  view  of  the  work- 
ing of  the  Convention  shows  that  it  has  been  found 
necessary  in  rather  roundabout  ways  to  give  States 
of  great  size  and  larger  interests  voting  power  pro- 
portionate to  their  size  and  their  interests. 

This  has  been  achieved  in  the  first  place  by 
giving  Colonies  and  Dependencies  of  the  Great 
Powers  separate  representation  in  the  Union. 
Thus,  not  only  the  French  Postal  Administration 
is  a  member  of  the  Union,  but  also  the  Postal  Ad- 
ministrations of  (i)  Algeria,  (2)  Indo-China,  and 
(3)  other  French  Colonies.  France  has,  therefore, 
in  practice  not  one  but  four  votes  in  the  Congress, 
and  in  the  same  way  Great  Britain,  including  her 
Colonies  and  Dependencies,  has  eight  votes.*  But 
there  is  still  another  method  by  which  the  more 
important  States  have  been  given  a  preponderat- 
ing voice.  The  preliminary  work  of  the  Congress 
is  shared  between  Committees  appointed  at  the 
first  meeting  of  the  delegates.  In  these  Com- 
mittees the  proposals  submitted  by  the  various 
Administrations  are  discussed,  and  a  report  is 
then  made  to  the  Congress,  which  confirms  or 


*  Similarly,  Germany  had  three  and  the  U.S.A.  two  votes.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  whereas  the  colonies  and  dependencies,  etc.,  of  other 
States  always  vote  the  same  way  as  the  Mother  Country,  this  has  not 
always  been  the  case  with  the  British  Empire. 


200  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

amends  it.  Finally,  each  Convention,  Agreement, 
or  set  of  Regulations  is  voted  upon  by  the  Con- 
gress as  a  whole.  Anyone  with  any  experience  of 
the  working  of  the  machinery  of  human  organiza- 
tions will  see  at  once  that  the  real  work  of  the 
Postal  Congress  is  done  in  Committee.  There 
were  in  the  full  Congress  of  1906  over  eighty  dele- 
gates; such  a  body  is  not  suitable  for  considering 
in  detail  in  a  limited  time  highly  technical  pro- 
posals. The  result  is  that  the  Reports  of  Com- 
mittees are  generally  accepted  by  the  Congress. 
Now,  by  a  certain  amount  of  manipulation,  it  has 
become  customary  practically  always  to  give  the 
Great  Powers  representation  upon  the  Committees, 
and  in  this  way  they  have  obtained  very  consider- 
able opportunity  for  getting  their  views  accepted. 
This  arrangement  has  not  been  allowed  to  con- 
tinue unchallenged,  and  at  the  last  Congress  the 
smaller  States  protested  against  their  exclusion 
from  Committees,  and  it  was  agreed  that  in  future 
every  Administration  should  be  entitled  to  be 
represented  at  least  once  upon  a  Committee  at 
every  Congress. 

The  point  is  of  real  importance,  for  it  shews 
how  conflicting  national  interests  emerge  in  the 
Union,  and  have  been  successfully  dealt  with. 
The  great  battles  of  the  Postal  Congress  have  been 
fought  over  the  question  of  transit  charges.  At 
present  when  a  letter  is  dispatched  from  the  ter- 
ritory of  one  Administration  to  the  territory  of  a 
second,  but  in  the  course  of  transmission  has  to 
pass  through  a  third  Administration,  the  inter- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  201 

mediary  is  entitled  to  make  a  transit  charge. 
There  are,  however,  two  groups  of  Administra- 
tions in  the  Union — one  in  favor  of  a  charge  being 
made  for  transit,  the  other  in  favor  of  free  transit. 
It  will  readily  be  understood  how  it  has  come 
about  that  the  interests  of  the  larger  and  the 
smaller  nations  are  in  conflict  on  this  question, 
and  that  the  large  nations  are  in  the  former,  and 
the  majority  of  the  small  nations  in  the  latter 
group.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  a  country  like 
Persia  or  the  many  small  South  American  Re- 
publics that  no  charge  should  be  made  for  transit, 
for,  being  outside  the  main  highways  of  the  world, 
very  little  postal  matter  passes  through  their  ter- 
ritory en  route  for  some  other  Administration, 
while  much  of  the  correspondence  dispatched  from 
their  territory  is  obliged  to  pass  through  that  of 
a  third  Administration.  They,  therefore,  are 
payers  but  not  receivers  of  transit  charges.  The 
case  is  very  different  with  the  great  nations  which 
are  themselves  the  highways  of  international  life 
by  reason  of  their  position  and  the  network  of 
railways  which  covers  them,  or  are  centers  from 
which  many  shipping  lines  radiate  across  the  seas 
to  connect  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  These 
countries  are  the  carriers  of  the  world's  correspond- 
ence, and  are,  therefore,  not  only  the  payers,  but 
also  the  receivers  of  transit  charges.  And  so  it 
would  be  all  to  the  advantage  of  the  majority  of 
smaller  nations  for  transit  to  be  free,  since  the 
cost  of  carrying  a  considerable  amount  of  inter- 
national correspondence  would  fall  upon  the  larger 

15 


202  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

nations,  the  payment  for  which  would  go  to  the 
smaller  nations.  So  far,  the  result  of  this  con- 
flict of  interests  in  the  Union  has  been  that  the 
supporters  of  free  transit  have  not  carried  their 
point,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  transit  charges 
have  been  kept  distinctly  moderate. 

There  is  one  other  point  regarding  the  working 
of  the  Union  which  has  a  great  bearing  upon 
International  Government.  No  government,  in- 
ternational or  national,  which  is  based  upon  agree- 
ment or  submission  to  collective  decisions,  is 
possible  unless  compromise,  where  interests  con- 
flict, is  widely  resorted  to.  In  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, in  the  County  Council,  and  in  the  Trade 
Union  it  is  in  the  power  of  a  majority  every  day 
to  vote  down  a  minority  and  its  interests  uncom- 
promisingly. But  everyone  knows  that  if  this 
power  were  so  used,  if  every  unit  in  these  associa- 
tions regarded  its  own  interests  with  a  kind  of 
religious  veneration  as  something  from  which  no 
abatement  could  be  made  in  the  interest  of 
another  unit,  then  neither  national  nor  municipal 
nor  trade  union  government  would  be  possible  at 
all.  The  theory  of  all  modern  government,  in- 
cluding that  of  the  State,  implies  an  agreement 
between  the  units  of  an  association  to  abide  by 
the  collective  decisions  of  the  associated  units. 
But  that  agreement  will  in  practice  not  be  kept 
unless  the  decisions  are  themselves  to  a  consider- 
able degree  in  the  nature  of  agreements.  Each 
unit  of  the  association  must  be  prepared  in  some 
measure  both  to  give  and  to  take,  to  recognize 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  203 

that  the  interests  of  other  units  have  at  least  a 
fractional  importance  of  its  own  in  the  eye  of  God. 
This,  in  other  words,  means  the  dreary,  but  sacred, 
duty  of  compromise  and  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  minorities. 

If  this  be  true  of  national  government  it  is  far 
more  true  of  the  beginnings  of  International  Gov- 
ernment in  which  the  bonds  between  the  units  of 
the  association  are  still  green.  Yet  here  precisely 
patriotism  and  the  popular  and  diplomatic  theories 
of  national  interests  might  be  expected  to  make 
for  a  ruthless  prosecution  by  each  unit  of  its  own 
interests  and  a  ruthless  over-riding  of  minorities. 
It  is  therefore  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  Postal 
Union  compromise  has  been  the  rule,  together 
with  an  extreme  tenderness  to  minorities,  and  yet 
it  has  never  been  suggested  that  this  tenderness 
on  the  part  of  one  State  for  the  interests  of  another 
has  really  harmed  its  own.  The  proof  that,  in 
actual  practice,  considerable  allowance  is  made  for 
the  special  circumstances  and  views  of  minorities 
may  be  found  in  the  large  number  of  exceptions 
and  options  allowed  in  the  Postal  Convention. 
It  would  take  too  long  to  deal  with  these  in  detail, 
and  I  therefore  propose  to  give  only  one,  but  an 
instructive,  example. 

By  Article  12  of  the  Convention  (of  1906)  each 
Administration  retains  the  sums  which  it  receives 
from  postal  matter  dispatched  by  it,  and  letters, 
etc.,  cannot  in  the  country  of  origin  be  subject  to 
any  charge  other  than  the  uniform  postal  rates. 
The  result  is  that  each  Administration  receives 


204  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

payment  only  for  letters,  etc.,  dispatched  by  it, 
not  for  those  received  by  it.  The  theory,  which 
on  the  whole  works  out  fairly  in  practice,  is  that 
the  number  of  letters  dispatched  will  equal  the 
number  received  by  an  Administration.  But  now 
it  is  found  that  the  kingdom  of  Persia  stands  in 
a  curious  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  Republic  of  the  United  States.  The 
former  is  inhabited  by  Mohammedans,  the  two 
latter  by  Christians.  British  and  American  Chris- 
tians have  a  passion  for  sending  Bibles  to  the 
Persian  Mohammedans,  while  the  Persian  never 
sends  his  Koran  to  Britain  or  America.  More- 
over, in  Persia  there  are  no  railways,  and  transport 
is  by  camel,  and  extremely  expensive.  At  one  of 
the  last  Postal  Congresses  the  Persian  delegate, 
in  an  eloquent  and  moving  speech,  drew  attention 
to  the  injustice  wrought  to  his  Administration  in 
these  circumstances  under  Article  12.  The  Brit- 
ish and  American  Administrations  retain  all  the 
postage  on  the  hundreds  of  Bibles  dispatched  by 
their  Christian  subjects.  All  the  year  round  the 
Persian  Administration  has  to  provide  at  great 
cost  strings  of  camels  to  convey  the  stream  of 
foreign  Bibles  to  its  subjects.  For  doing  this  it 
gets  no  return,  and  meanwhile  the  Persians  neg- 
lect to  send  either  letters  or  Korans  to  foreigners, 
the  postage  on  which  would  be  retained  by  their 
own  Administration.  The  justice  and  eloquence 
of  the  Persian  plea  had  its  effect,  and  the  follow- 
ing Article  V  is  added  in  a  final  protocol  to  the 
Convention  of  1906:  "Par  exception  aux  dispo- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  205 

sitions  du  §3  de  Particle  12  de  la  Convention,  la 
Perse  a  la  faculte  de  percevoir  sur  les  destinataires 
des  imprimes  de  toute  sorte  arrivant  de  1'etranger 
une  taxe  de  5  centimes  par  envoi  distribue." 

(2)  International  Telegraphy 

The  necessity  for  uniformity  of  administration 
is  even  more  pressing  in  the  case  of  international 
telegraphy  than  in  that  of  the  international  post. 
And  so,  though  the  telegraph  boy  made  his  ap- 
pearance centuries  later  than  the  postman,  the 
International  Telegraphic  Union  was  formed  at  a 
Conference  in  Paris  in  1865,  nine  years  before  the 
Postal  Union.  The  international  administration 
resulting  from  the  Convention  signed  at  that  Con- 
ference is  in  so  many  respects  similar  to  that 
which  results  from  the  Postal  Convention  that  a 
detailed  examination  of  it  would  entail  much 
repetition.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  deal  very 
shortly  with  its  chief  characteristics  and  in  par- 
ticular with  the  points  in  which  it  differs  from  the 
Postal  Administration. 

The  constitution  of  the  Union  is  contained  in  a 
Convention  and  a  Reglement,  and  it  owes  its 
present  form  to  the  Conference  at  St.  Petersburg 
in  1875,  which  revised  the  original  Convention. 
Unlike  the  Postal  Convention,  the  Telegraphic 
Convention  is  strictly  confined  to  the  funda- 
mental stipulations  or  general  principles  of  the 
Union,  while  all  the  details  are  contained  in  the 
provisions  of  the  Reglement.  As  a  result,  while 
the  Postal  Convention  has  been  revised  periodically 


206  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

by  the  Postal  Congresses,  no  revision  of  the  Tele- 
graphic Convention  has  been  found  necessary 
since  1875.  The  fundamental  stipulations  bind 
States  to  recognize  the  right  of  all  persons  to 
correspond  by  means  of  the  international  tele- 
graph and  to  provide  special  wires  for  the  inter- 
national telegraphic  service  in  sufficient  numbers 
to  insure  rapid  transmission.  They  also  insure 
the  right  of  transit  of  telegrams,*  and  a  uniform 
charge  between  telegraphic  offices  of  different 
States. 

The  Convention  establishes  two  organs  of  Inter- 
national Government — the  Conference  and  the 
Bureau.  The  functions  of  the  Bureau  are  similar 
to  those  performed  by  the  Postal  Bureau  for  the 
Postal  Union.  But  the  Telegraphic  Conference 
differs  in  one  important  respect  from  the  Postal 
Congress :  the  latter  has  the  power  to  amend  both 
the  Convention  and  the  Reglement,  the  former 
can  only  deal  with  the  provisions  of  the  Regle- 
ment. Thus,  while  the  Postal  Convention  created 
a  new  international  legislative  organ  which  has 
the  power  to  alter  the  constitution  and  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  Union,  the  legislative 
organ  of  the.  Telegraphic  Union  has  no  power  to 
alter  the  constitution  or  fundamental  stipulations, 
but  is  confined  to  regulating  international  teleg- 
raphy within  the  limits  of  the  general  principles 
laid  down  in  the  Convention.  This,  however,  does 
not  prevent  the  Conference  from  substituting  In- 


*  Subject  to  certain  reservations. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  207 

ternational  for  National  Government  in  the  widest 
sense.  The  decisions  of  the  Conference  bind  the 
different  Administrations  on  such  important  points 
as  the  following,  which  are  contained  in  the 
Reglement: — 

(1)  The  provision  of  apparatus  necessary  for 
rapid  transmission. 

(2)  The  hours   during  which   telegraph  offices 
shall  be  open. 

(3)  The   form   in   which   telegrams   are   to  be 
written,  the  classification  of  telegrams,  and  the 
counting  of  words. 

(4)  The  tariff  of  charges  for  transmission  and 
transit;    the    settling    of    accounts    between  Ad- 
ministrations. 

(5)  The  signals  of  transmission  to  be  employed, 
and  the  methods  of  transmission. 

(6)  The  international  telephonic  service. 

The  procedure  of  a  Telegraphic  Conference  is 
in  all  important  respects  the  same  as  that  of  a 
Postal  Congress,  and  a  similar  *  procedure  to  that 
of  the  Postal  Union  exists  for  amending  the  Regle- 
ment or  Tariff  in  the  intervals  between  Confer- 
ences. The  union  is  not  quite  so  universal  as  the 
Postal  Union,  since  the  United  States  of  America 


*The  procedure  differs  in  the  following  points:  When  proposals  are 
circulated,  counter-proposals  and  amendments  are  allowed.  These,  if 
made,  are  circulated,  and  each  Administration  is  asked  to  vote  for  or 
against  the  original  proposals  and  the  counter-proposals.  Unanimous 
assent  is  required  for  any  modification  of  the  Reglement,  and  the  assent 
of  the  Administrations  concerned  for  any  modification  of  tariffs,  but  a 
majority  vote  is  sufficient  for  an  interpretation  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Reglement. 


208  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

still  remains  outside,  though  it  sends  a  represen- 
tative to  the  Conferences  with  the  right  to  take 
part  in  the  proceedings,  but  not  to  vote.  The 
fact  that  very  few  of  the  telegraph  lines  of  the 
United  States  are  under  federal  control  stands  in 
the  way  of  its  becoming  a  member  of  the  Union. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  private  telegraph 
companies  are  admitted  to  quasi-membership,  i.  e., 
they  are  admitted  to  Conferences,  but  cannot  vote. 
At  the  time  of  the  last  Conference  there  were 
thirty-one  private  companies  "adhering"  to  the 
Union. 

But  the  Telegraphic  Union  has  not  proved 
sufficient  by  itself  to  protect  the  international  in- 
terests which  telegraphy  has  created.  The  first 
submarine  cable  was  laid  in  1851,  and  the  first 
transatlantic  cable  in  1858.  Now,  submarine 
cables  are  laid  in  the  international  territory  called 
the  sea.  They  are  liable  to  many  kinds  of  dam- 
age, but  particularly  to  damage  from  fishing-boats 
and  dredgers.  But  while  it  is  to  the  interest  of 
every  State  that  submarine  cables  should  be  pro- 
tected from  damage,  it  is  impossible  that  this  can 
be  adequately  done  by  independent  legislation  and 
administration  in  the  different  States,  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  territory  in  which  the  cables  are 
laid  is  international  and  is  used  by  vessels  of  all 
the  different  nations.  As  early  as  1863  the  need 
for  international  action  was  recognized,  and  a 
Conference  of  seven  States  was  held  in  Paris,  and 
resulted  in  a  Convention  for  the  protection  of  a 
submarine  cable.  Action  on  a  large  scale  was  not, 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  209 

however,  taken  until  1882,  when  a  Conference  of 
over  thirty  States  met  at  Paris,  and,  after  sitting 
again  in  1883,  produced  a  Convention,  which  was 
signed  in  1884. 

The  method  adopted  for  introducing  Inter- 
national Government  to  protect  this  international 
interest  differs  considerably  from  that  adopted  in 
the  two  Unions  with  which  I  have  just  dealt. 
What  is  required  in  this  case  is  to  make  by  legis- 
lation certain  acts  of  damage,  whether  voluntary 
or  the  result  of  culpable  negligence,  punishable, 
and  then  by  administration  to  take  the  necessary 
steps  for  catching  and  punishing  offenders.  This 
might  have  been  most  easily  attained  by  making 
the  offenses  international  offenses,  and  offenders 
subject  to  arrest  by  the  public  officers  and  pun- 
ishable in  the  Courts  of  any  signatory  State.  But 
for  some  reason  the  idea  of  international  jurisdic- 
tion for  an  international  offense  always  seems  a 
more  dangerous  encroachment  upon  nationalism 
than  the  far  more  drastic  encroachments  of  organs 
like  the  Postal  Congress.  The  method,  therefore, 
adopted  in  the  Convention  of  1884  was  a  com- 
promise between  International  and  National  Gov- 
ernment. The  signatory  States  agree  that  dam- 
age, done  voluntarily  or  by  culpable  negligence, 
to  submarine  cables  shall  be  punishable  (Article  2), 
and  that  ships  laying  or  repairing  cables  and  boats 
engaged  in  fishing  shall  take  certain  precautions 
with  a  view  to  preventing  damage  (Articles  5  and 
6).  The  several  States  bind  themselves  to  intro- 
duce legislation  "pour  assurer  Pexecution  de  la 


210  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

presente  Convention  et  notamment  pour  faire 
punir,  soit  de  1'imprisonnement,  soit  de  1'amende, 
soit  de  ces  deux  peines,  ceux  qui  contreviendraient 
aux  dispositions  des  articles  2,  5,  et  6.  Jurisdic- 
tion to  try  offenses  is  confined  to  the  Courts  of 
the  country  to  which  the  offending  ship  belongs, 
but  any  vessel  of  war  of  any  State,  or  any  vessel 
specially  commissioned  by  any  State,  may  arrest 
any  ship  suspected  of  offending,  and  the  officers 
of  the  former  may  examine  the  ship's  papers  and 
make  a  proces-verbal,  which  can  be  used  in  evi- 
dence in  the  Court  before  which  the  case  eventually 
comes  for  trial. 

Thus  in  the  Convention  of  1884  International 
Government  is  recognized  in  three  different  ways. 
The  signatory  States  bind  themselves  by  agree- 
ment to  introduce  a  uniform  national  law  (a  sub- 
ject which  rightly  belongs  to  the  next  chapter), 
thereby  rendering  certain  actions  not  only  national, 
but  also  international,  offenses.  The  result  of 
this  cosmopolitan  legislation  is,  further,  to  intro- 
duce some  measure  of  uniformity  into  the  several 
national  Administrations.  Thirdly,  the  actual  ap- 
prehension of  offenders  is  put  under  international 
administration,  for  the  commissioned  vessels  of 
the  signatory  States  are  given  powers  of  an  inter- 
national police  for  the  protection  of  cables. 

The  Convention  of  1884  recognized  that  iso- 
lated and  independent  action  of  States  in  this 
matter  was  useless.  No  harm  seems  to  have  re- 
sulted to  national  interests  from  the  measure  of 
International  Government  which  was  set  up;  in 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  211 

fact,  there  is  evidence  that  the  protection  is  not 
international  enough  to  be  efficacious.  In  1908 
the  British  Government,  in  consequence  of  dam- 
age caused  to  thirteen  transatlantic  cables,  set  up 
a  National  Commission,  composed  of  representa- 
tives of  cable  companies  and  fishing  interests. 
The  Commission  exercised  surveillance  over  the 
construction  of  fishing  boats,  and  the  effect  was 
to  reduce  the  damage  done  to  cables.  But  the 
effect  could  only  be  partial  so  long  as  other  coun- 
tries neglected  to  adopt  similar  measures,  and  so 
the  British  Government  summoned  a  Conference 
in  1913  with  a  view  to  getting  the  Governments 
of  other  States  to  adopt  uniform  administrative 
measures  of  this  kind.  The  object  of  the  Con- 
ference was  not  to  conclude  a  new  Convention, 
but  to  arrange  for  the  organization  of  a  common 
system  of  inspection  and  other  measures  by 
the  different  Administrations.*  The  resolutions 
adopted  at  the  Conference  provide,  among  other 
things,  for  the  establishment  in  each  country  of 
a  central  authority  occupying  itself  with  all  ques- 
tions relating  to  demands  for  indemnities  for  dam- 
age, these  authorities  to  be  in  direct  communica- 
tion with  one  another.  Another  resolution  provides 
for  the  direct  exchange  of  information,  etc.,  be- 
tween the  Administrations  of  the  various  countries 
which  deal  with  the  protection  of  cables. 

The  invention  of  wireless  telegraphy  introduced 
a  further  complication  of  international  interests. 


*  Vide  La  Fie  Internationale,  V,  1914,  p.  136. 


212  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  international  interests  of  communication 
clearly  prescribed  the  exchange  of  wireless  mes- 
sages between  the  installations  of  various  coun- 
tries, and  the  international  interest  of  safety  at 
sea  even  more  clearly  required  the  exchange  of 
messages  between  ship  and  ship,  and  ship  and 
coast.  As  soon,  however,  as  a  proposal  was  made 
to  attain  these  objects  by  International  Govern- 
ment through  a  Union  on  the  model  of  the  Tele- 
graphic Union,  the  usual  parochial  cry  of  vital 
national  interests  was  raised.  "The  British  Mar- 
coni Company  secured  an  exclusive  contract  with 
the  British  Lloyd  and  with  the  Italian  Govern- 
ment for  telegraphic  service  between  vessels  and 
coast.  Under  this  arrangement  the  wireless  sta- 
tions in  these  two  countries  would  refuse  to  receive 
or  send  messages  of  any  other  system  than  that 
of  Marconi.  The  political  advantages  of  such  an 
arrangement  to  a  Power  like  Great  Britain  are 
apparent  at  first  sight,  and  the  relinquishment  of 
such  a  privilege  through  any  Convention  met  with 
much  resistance  in  England,  because  it  was  be- 
lieved that,  under  the  Marconi  monopoly,  the 
British  Government  would  have  obtained  a  great 
advantage  over  its  rivals."  * 

In  other  words,  we  had  to  weigh  the  advantages 
of  free  international  communication  regulated  by 
international  agreement  against  the  interests  of 
the  Marconi  Company,  national  isolation,  and  a 
monopoly  which  might  or  might  not  prove  of  value 


*  Reinsch,  Public  International  Unions,  p.  128. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  213 

in  war.*  After  a  considerable  struggle  we  sac- 
rificed the  "vital  interests"  of  the  British  Mar- 
coni Company  and  the  British  Empire  to  the 
international  interests  of  wireless  communication, 
and  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  seems  to  have  suffered  any  visible  harm, 
in  peace  or  in  war,  by  the  sacrifice  of  its  vital 
interests.  Marconis  stand  at  about  405.,  and  the 
British  Navy  after  a  few  months  of  war  was  su- 
preme in  every  sea. 

The  British  surrender  to  internationalism  took 
place,  horresco  refer  ens,  at  Berlin  in  1906,  when 
twenty-nine  States  sent  delegates  to  a  Conference 
internationale  pour  la  reglementation  de  la  tele- 
graphic sans  fils.  The  result  of  the  Conference  was 
the  signing  of  a  Convention  and  Reglement  which 
establish  a  Radiotelegraphic  Union  on  the  model  of 
the  Telegraphic  Union.  The  Convention  contains 
the  fundamental  stipulations,  the  Reglement  the 
details.  The  chief  stipulations  of  the  former  were : — 

*  It  was  argued  by  British  "Nationalists"  that  the  possession  of  a  wire- 
less monopoly  by  Britain,  even  in  foreign  countries,  would  be  a  tremendous 
weapon  in  war.  The  Times,  quoted  by  Reinsch,  wrote: — "The  existence 
of  a  world-wide  commercial  organization,  with  its  headquarters  in  England, 
in  closest  touch  with  the  Admiralty,  largely  operated,  even  in  foreign  ter- 
ritories and  on  foreign  ships,  by  English  operators,  would  be  an  invaluable 
asset  to  the  Admiralty  in  a  great  war."  But  the  Marconi  system  was, 
and  is,  not  the  only  system  of  wireless  telegraphy,  and  it  is  practically 
certain,  therefore,  that  other  countries  would  never  have  quietly  acquiesced 
in  the  establishment  of  this  British  monopoly  and  wireless  hegemony.  It 
is  interesting,  as  throwing  light  upon  "Nationalist"  psychology,  to  imagine 
what  the  Times  would  have  said,  and  would  say,  of  a  similar  attempt  by 
Germany  to  establish,  by  means  of  peaceful  penetration  and  commercial 
monopoly,  a  wireless  hegemony  over  the  whole  world  in  closest  touch 
with  the  German  General  Staff! 


214  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

(1)  The  dispositions  of  the  Convention  are  to 
apply  to  all  wireless  stations,  whether  on  the  coast 
or  on  ships,  whether  belonging  to  the  States  or  to 
private  companies  (Article  i). 

(2)  All  stations  on  the  coast  and  all  stations  on 
ships  must  exchange  messages  without  distinction 
of  the  system  adopted  by  the  stations  (Article  3). 

(3)  Each  State  must  connect  its  coast  station 
with  its  main  telegraphic  system  by  special  wires. 

(4)  General  stipulations  as  to  charges. 

The  organs  of  the  Union  are  (i)  A  Conference  of 
Plenipotentiaries,  (2)  An  Administrative  Confer- 
ence, (3)  A  Bureau.  The  Conference  of  Pleni- 
potentiaries is  to  deal  with  proposals  to  amend  or 
alter  the  Convention,  and  it  decides  itself  when 
and  where  it  shall  meet  again.  The  Administra- 
tive Conference  deals  with  the  Reglement.  The 
Telegraphic  Bureau  at  Berne  acts  as  the  Bureau 
of  the  Radiotelegraphic  Union. 

The  second  Conference  of  Plenipotentiaries  was 
fixed  for  1912,  and  was  held  in  London  in  that 
year.  The  experience  of  six  years  seems  to  have 
shown  that  national  interests  had  not  suffered 
under  the  International  Government  established 
by  the  Union.  At  any  rate,  everything  which  the 
Conference  did  was  directed  to  the  extension  of 
the  sphere  of  International  Government.  This 
was  most  remarkable  in  the  attention  devoted 
by  the  Conference  to  the  question  of  wireless  in- 
stallations on  ships.  The  Titanic  disaster  had 
just  shown  the  world  that  safety  of  ships  at  sea 
is  an  international  interest  which,  can  only  be 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  215 

safeguarded  by  international  action.  An  iceberg 
does  not  distinguish  the  national  flags  under 
which  ships  sail.  If  a  vessel  under  the  British 
flag  is  sinking  or  in  distress,  the  safety  of  its  crew 
or  passengers  may  depend  upon  its  ability  to 
exchange  wireless  messages  even  with  a  German 
vessel  in  its  neighborhood.  That  ability  would 
itself  depend  upon  the  exchange  of  messages  be- 
tween all  ships  being  always  compulsory.  But 
the  Convention  of  1906,  although  it  laid  down  the 
rule  that  all  coast  stations  and  all  ships  must 
exchange  messages,  no  matter  what  the  system 
of  installation  adopted,  had  not  applied  this  rule 
to  the  exchange  of  messages  between  ship  and 
ship.  The  Conference  of  1912  amended  the  Con- 
vention by  making  the  exchange  of  messages 
between  ships  in  all  cases  obligatory.  It  also 
added  stipulations  regarding  the  provision  of 
wireless  installation  on  certain  classes  of  ships, 
the  maintenance  of  wireless  communications  on 
ships,  the  number  of  operators  to  be  carried,  and 
the  provision  of  an  uninterrupted  line  of  wireless 
installations  on  the  coasts  of  the  signatory  States. 
It  stated  its  adherence  in  principle  to  the  employ- 
ment of  wireless  installation  on  vessels  of  certain 
classes  being  made  obligatory,  and  declared  the 
desirability  of  the  unification  of  national  legisla- 
tion by  international  treaty. 

The  Convention  of  1912  also  made  a  slight 
alteration  in  the  constitution  of  the  Union.  By 
the  original  Convention  every  State  was  given  one 
vote  in  the  Conferences  and  by  Article  12  the 


216  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

right  in  certain  cases  to  separate  representation 
of  colonies  and  dependencies  was  recognized,  with 
the  proviso  that  the  number  of  votes  at  the  dis- 
posal of  a  Government,  including  its  colonies  and 
dependencies,  should  not  exceed  six.  In  the  Con- 
vention of  1912  the  number  of  colonies  and  de- 
pendencies to  which  representation  and  votes  were 
accorded  was  finally  decided. 

(3)  Railways 

When  two  States  with  a  common  boundary  have 
reached  the  stage  of  civilization  which  France  and 
Germany  had  attained  in  the  last  century,  complete 
independence  of  railway  administration  is  incom- 
patible with  the  modes  of  life  and  the  requirements 
of  the  men  and  women  who  are  called  Frenchmen 
and  Germans.  An  imperious  Franco-German  in- 
terest accordingly  arises  which  requires  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  national  frontier  so  far  as  the  railway 
traffic  in  men  and  goods  is  concerned.  That 
"through  traffic,"  under  such  conditions,  should 
be  impossible  would  be  felt  to  be  an  absurdity  and 
an  anachronism.  And  this  applies  to  nearly  the 
whole  of  Continental  Europe.  "Through  traffic" 
becomes  an  international  interest.  But  this  inter- 
national interest  is  not  compatible  with  many 
"vital  national  interests,"  for  it  can  only  be 
properly  served  by  the  internationalization  of 
railway  administration  and  the  substitution  of 
International  for  National  Government. 

The  first  step  towards  such  a  substitution  was 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 217 

taken  in  1878,*  when  an  international  Conference 
met  at  Berne.  A  second  Conference  was  held  in 
1 88 1,  a  third  in  1886,  and  a  fourth  in  1890.  The 
fourth  Conference  resulted  in  the  signing  of  a 
Convention  .  Internationale  sur  le  transport  des 
marchandises  par  chemins  de  fer  by  nine  States 
— Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Belgium,  France, 
Italy,  Luxemburg,  Holland,  Russia,  and  Switzer- 
land. The  Convention,  although  it  does  inter- 
nationalize the  administration  of  railways  so  far 
as  concerns  the  transport  of  merchandise,  does 
not  set  up  so  advanced  a  form  of  International 
Government  as  the  Unions  previously  described. 
It  establishes  an  Administrative  Bureau,  but  no 
legislative  organ  with  quite  the  same  powers  as 
the  Postal  Congress  and  Telegraphic  Conference. 
It  provides  for  modification  and  amendment  of 
the  Convention  by  stating  that  Conferences  of 
delegates  of  signatory  States  shall  be  held  at 
regular  intervals  or  on  demand  of  at  least  one- 
fourth  of  the  States. 

The  Convention  does,  however,  effectually  abol- 
ish the  independence  of  national  administration. 
This  can  best  be  shown  by  giving  some  of  its  more 
important  provisions! : — 

(i)  The  acceptance  and  transport  of  all  mer- 
chandise, other  than  certain  defined  classes,  is 

*  It  is  said  that  the  idea  of  an  international  agreement  was  first  advo- 
cated in  a  pamphlet  by  two  lawyers,  MM.  Seigneux  and  Christ,  published 
at  Bale  in  1875. 

fThe  original  Convention,  as  the  result  of  conferences  of  revision  in 
1896  and  1905,  has  been  amended  by  additional  Conventions.     The  pro- 
visions which  follow  are  taken  from  the  amended  Convention. 
16 


218  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

obligatory  on  all  railways,  provided  that  the  con- 
signor conforms  with  the  requirements  of  the 
Convention. 

(2)  A  uniform  system  of  through  transport  is 
established  under  a  "lettre  de  voiture."     Detailed 
uniform  regulations  as  to  the  form  of  the  "lettre 
de  voiture,"  and  as  to  the  packing,  transport,  etc., 
of  certain  articles,  the  recovery  and  payment  of 
charges,  the  settlement  of  accounts  between  rail- 
ways, are  imposed  upon  all  administrations. 

(3)  The    responsibility   of   administrations    for 
loss  or  damage  is  established.     The  amounts  re- 
coverable from  railways  for  delay  are  fixed. 

(4)  The   court  competent  to  try  cases  is  the 
court  of  the  domicile  of  the  railway,  but  all  judg- 
ments are  executory  in  all  the  signatory  States. 

(5)  Disputes  between  railways  are,  on  the  de- 
mand of  the  parties,  subject  to  arbitration  of  the 
Bureau. 

The  Convention  has  thus  applied  international 
administration  to  the  transport  of  merchandise. 
The  results  have  been  so  satisfactory  that  a  pro- 
posal was  soon  made  to  extend  the  international 
system  to  passengers  and  baggage,  and  a  draft 
Convention  was  under  consideration  when  the 
great  war  broke  out.  But  in  another  direction 
the  further  internationalization  of  railway  admin- 
istration has  been  found  to  be  both  necessary  and 
possible.  On  the  Continent  modern  conditions  of 
through  traffic  require  some  uniformity  of  gauge 
and  rolling  stock,  and  in  1882  a  Conference  for  the 
"Unite  technique  des  chemins  de  fer"  met  in 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  219 

Berne.  Two  further  Conferences  were  held  in 
1886  and  1907.  Conventions  have  been  concluded 
at  these  Conferences,  and  have  been  ratified  by 
nearly  all  the  Continental  States,  regulating  for 
all  railways: — 

(1)  The  maximum  gauge. 

(2)  The  construction  of  rolling  stock. 

(3)  The  loading  and  marking  of  wagons. 

(4)  The  type  of  lock  on  carriages  used  in  the 
international  service. 

(4)  Other  Means  of  Communication 

The  Post,  the  Telegraph,  and  the  Railway  are 
in  most  countries  subjected  to  State  control  and 
are  State  enterprises.  Their  internationalization 
has  therefore  largely  consisted  in  a  unification  of 
administration  by  means  of  an  international 
authority,  established  by  international  agreement, 
and  by  whose  decisions  as  regards  the  inter- 
national services  national  administrations  are 
bound.  Other  means  of  communication,  such  as 
shipping  and  road  transport,  are  usually  left  to 
private  enterprise,  and,  though  they  are  often  the 
subjects  of  national  legislation  or  the  objects  of 
national  administration,  they  do  not  themselves 
form  a  department  of  the  administration  of  the 
State.  Nevertheless,  so  important  are  the  inter- 
national interests  in  the  uniformity  and  freedom 
of  all  such  means,  that  neither  for  shipping  nor 
for  road  transport  by  motor-car  has  independent 
administration  by  independent  sovereign  States 
been  found  possible  under  modern  conditions. 


220 


To  deal  in  detail  with  the  internationalization 
of  administration  applied  to  shipping  and  motor- 
cars would,  however,  occupy  so  much  space  that 
I  propose  here  simply  to  give  references  to  some 
of  the  more  important  agreements.  As  regards 
shipping,  there  are  in  the  first  place  a  large  num- 
ber of  agreements  insuring  freedom  of  navigation 
on  rivers,  and  either  subjecting  national  adminis- 
tration in  connection  with  navigation  to  uniform 
regulations  or  setting  up  organs  of  international 
administration.  Thus,  the  navigation  of  the  Rhine 
is  regulated  by  Article  5  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  of 
1814,  and  by  two  Conventions  of  1831  and  1868. 
The  regulation  of  navigation  of  the  Danube  has 
been  laid  down  in  Articles  15  to  19  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  of  1856,  in  a  protocol  of  the  Conference  of 
London  of  1871,  in  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  of  1878, 
and  in  the  Treaty  of  London  of  1883.  By  the 
Treaties  of  Paris  and  London,  an  international 
organ,  the  Commission  europeenne,  was  created 
to  carry  out  work  necessary  to  render  the  river 
navigable  and  with  power  to  levy  international 
navigation  dues  to  cover  the  cost  of  the  work. 
Navigation  of  the  Scheldt  was  regulated  by 
Article  9  of  the  Treaty  of  London  of  1839,  and  of 
the  Congo  by  Articles  13  to  25  of  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin  of  1885,  in  the  latter  case  through  an  In- 
ternational Commission  with  wide  powers.* 

*  Other  rivers  to  which  freedom  of  navigation  has  been  applied  by  inter- 
national agreement  are  the  Meuse,  Elbe,  Oder,  Pruth,  Dniester,  Niemen, 
Vistula,  Guadiana,  Tagus,  Douro,  in  Europe;  the  St.  Lawrence,  Amazon, 
Rio  Grande,  Rio  de  la  Plata,  in  America. — Vide  Annuaire  de  La  Vie  Inter- 
nationale, 1908-1909. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  221 

The  Automobile  Convention  of  1909  also  de- 
serves mention.  It  was  signed  by  sixteen  States, 
and  it  introduces  a  considerable  measure  of  inter- 
national administration.  It  prescribes  uniform 
conditions,  by  compliance  with  which  cars  and 
drivers  can  claim  the  right  to  use  the  roads  of  all 
signatory  Powers,  international  road  certificates 
and  number  plates  are  to  be  issued  by  all  the 
different  administrations,  and  four  international 
signposts  marking  cross-roads,  etc.,  are  adopted. 

B. — Public  Health  and  Epidemic  Diseases 

Anyone  turning  over  the  pages  of  a  collection 
of  treaties  signed  in  the  last  twenty  years  will  find 
at  intervals  some  fifty  pages  occupied  by  an  Inter- 
national Sanitary  Convention,  a  most  elaborate 
international  agreement  in  nearly  200  articles, 
signed  by  most  of  the  civilized  States  of  the  world. 
The  history  which  lies  behind  that  document,  if 
it  could  be  fully  written,  would  be  of  immense 
value  to  the  student  of  International  Government 
and  of  human  prejudices,  for  the  conflict  fought  by 
the  theory  of  national  independence,  isolation,  and 
national  interests  against  the  facts  of  international 
life  and  international  interests  has  nowhere  shown 
itself  more  persistently  and  clearly  than  in  the 
struggle  of  human  beings  against  the  scourges  of 
cholera,  plague,  and  other  epidemic  diseases. 
That  history  cannot  and  never  can  be  fully  writ- 
ten, for  much  of  the  conflict  has  taken  place  be- 
hind doors  closed  by  diplomacy,  in  International 


222 


Councils  and  Conferences  and  in  documents 
buried  securely  in  the  archives  of  public  depart- 
ments. Yet  sufficient  facts  can  be  ascertained 
regarding  the  conflict  to  show  that  the  ordinary 
conceptions  of  the  independent  State  and  of  the 
independence  of  national  interests  have  proved  as 
inapplicable  to  sanitation  and  shipping  as  to  com- 
munication by  post,  telegraph,  railway,  river,  and 
motor-car.  Those  facts  I  now  propose  to  give 
in  some  detail. 

For  centuries  Europe  has  been  liable  to  de- 
vastating invasions  of  epidemic  diseases,  and  in 
particular  plague  and  cholera.  They  came  from 
the  East,  from  Asia,  where  in  some  places  they 
are  endemic.  The  growth  of  communications  and 
international  intercourse  through  trade  in  the 
nineteenth  century  profoundly  affected  the  ques- 
tion of  the  spread  of  these  diseases.  Modern 
science  tells  us  that  cholera  is  mainly  a  water-born 
disease,  and  that  it  is  spread  usually  through  the 
drinking  by  healthy  persons  of  water  which  has 
been  contaminated  by  diseased  persons.  Bubonic 
plague  is  communicated  by  rat  fleas,  which  have 
bitten  a  diseased  person,  subsequently  biting  a 
healthy  person.  The  danger  of  international  epi- 
demics is,  therefore,  certainly  increased  by  any- 
thing which  increases  the  movement  of  people, 
rats,  or  fleas  from  infected  to  uninfected  areas. 
It  is  also  increased  by  anything  which  increases 
the  rapidity  of  communications.  The  incubation 
period  of  cholera  does  not  exceed  ten  days,  and  of 
plague  fifteen  days.  In  the  days  of  slow  sailing 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  223 

vessels  the  presence  of  an  infected  person  would 
often  become  apparent  during  the  voyage,  where 
to-day,  traveling  in  a  fast  steamer,  he  may  reach 
his  destination  without  detection,  and  start  a 
center  of  infection  in  some  densely  populated 
place.  Facts  confirm  these  a  priori  statements. 
Cholera  and  plague  epidemics  follow  the  great 
trade  routes  between  Asia  and  other  continents, 
and  in  Asia  itself  the  trade  and  the  great  pilgrim- 
age routes.  The  enormous  increase  in  the  volume 
and  rapidity  of  the  streams  of  humanity  which 
flow  along  these  routes  soon  warned  Europe  in  the 
nineteenth  century  by  facts  of  the  increased  dan- 
ger of  infection.  In  1830  cholera  entered  Europe 
for  the  first  time;  in  1832  it  arrived  in  Britain,  and 
the  same  year  crossed  the  Atlantic  to  America.  In 
1848-1851,1851-1855, 1865-1874, 1884-1886,1892- 
1895  Europe  again  suffered  from  its  invasions.* 

The  safeguarding  of  Europe  against  these  Asiatic 
invasions  has  existed  as  an  international  problem 
since  1830.  The  problem  is  twofold,  for,  since 
the  epidemics  follow  both  the  pilgrimage  and  the 
trade  routes,  measures  for  defense  must  be  ap- 
plied to  the  pilgrim  traffic  to  the  great  Moham- 
medan shrines  at  Al  Medina  and  Mecca,  as  well 
as  to  the  shipping  traffic  of  men  and  merchandise 
from  Asia  to  Europe.  These  two  sides  of  the 
problem  affect  different  national  interests  in  dif- 
ferent ways;  they  have  for  the  most  part  been 
dealt  with  by  different  methods;  and  it  is  con- 


*Manson,  Tropical  Diseases,  p.  389. 


224  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

venient,   therefore,   to  consider  them  at  present 
separately. 

First  as  to  the  trade  routes.  The  prevention  of 
the  export  of  cholera  from  Asia  to  Europe  is 
clearly  for  the  latter  continent  an  international 
interest,  and  the  history  of  the  six  European  epi- 
demics of  the  last  century  has  proved  that  isolated 
and  independent  action  by  isolated  and  inde- 
pendent States  is  absolutely  useless.  The  rapid 
diffusion  of  cholera  from  one  country  to  another 
in  those  epidemics  was  due  solely  to  the  rapidity 
and  frequency  of  communication  by  sea  between 
the  different  countries.  The  cause  of  that  rapid 
and  frequent  communication  was  international 
trade,  and  without  freedom  for  ships  to  come  and 
go  in  the  ports  of  the  world,  international  trade 
as  we  know  it  is  impossible.  Therefore,  in  dealing 
with  the  problem,  there  are,  broadly,  only  two 
alternative  and  mutually  exclusive  policies  avail- 
able. The  first  is  to  take  steps  which  will  stop 
the  freedom  of  shipping  and  with  it  both  the  dif- 
fusion of  cholera  and  the  international  intercourse 
of  commerce;  the  other  is  to  find  some  means  of 
preventing  the  entry  into  ports  of  cholera  without 
preventing  the  free  entry  and  departure  of  ships. 
Over  these  two  policies  a  long  and  bitter  inter- 
national controversy  raged  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth century,  for  while  many  Continental  States 
attempted  to  enforce  the  first,  Great  Britain,  with 
her  vast  "commercial  and  shipping  interests," 
clung  tenaciously  to  the  second.  It  is  in  the  his- 
tory of  this  controversy  that  the  hopelessness  of 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  225 

attempting  to  apply  the  theory  of  national  inde- 
pendence to  the  facts  of  modern  life  becomes 
particularly  clear. 

The  first  policy  is  the  policy  of  quarantine.  It 
applies  in  its  extreme  form  the  theory  of  national 
isolation  and  independence.  It  attempts  in  each 
country  to  keep  out  epidemic  diseases  entirely  by 
national  action  and  administration.  Theoretically 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  succeed.  If 
there  are  three  countries,  A,  B,  and  C,  and  cholera 
exists  in  A  and  B  but  not  in  C,  then  if  C,  by  ad- 
ministrative action,  closes  its  ports  and  frontiers 
to  all  men,  goods,  and  ships  from  A  and  B,  C  will 
undoubtedly  remain  free  from  disease.  Many 
Continental  States  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  attempted  to  apply  such  a  system 
by  quarantine  regulations.  Men,  goods,  and  ships 
were  detained  in  ports  for  a  period  which  was 
thought  to  prove  that  they  could  not  be  infected 
with  disease.  In  some  cases  the  period  of  de- 
tention was  as  much  as  twenty  days.*  Such  regu- 
lations under  which  passengers  or  perishable  cargo 
are  liable  to  three  weeks'  interment  in  a  southern 
port,  are  obviously  incompatible  with  international 
commerce  and  intercourse  of  any  kind.  A  nation 
which  adopts  them  is  electing  to  withdraw  from 
the  international  life  of  the  twentieth  century  into 
the  national  isolation  of  the  tenth. 

But  no  State  can  go  back  ten  centuries  unless 
the  individuals  of  which  it  is  composed  are  also 

*  E.  g.,  Greece,  in  1865  (vide  Sir  John  Simon's  Public  Health  Reports, 
Vol.  II,  p.  246). 


226  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

willing  to  go  back,  and  from  1830  to  1914  men  and 
women  were,  on  the  whole,  unwilling.  Conse- 
quently, the  attempt  to  keep  out  cholera  by  inde- 
pendent national  administration,  by  isolation  and 
quarantine,  practically  always  failed.*  It  failed 
primarily  because  persons  refused  to  suffer  the 
loss  of  international  intercourse  and  trade,  and, 
to  quote  Sir  John  Simon,  who  was  a  member  of 
the  General  Medical  Council  and  Medical  Officer 
of  Her  Majesty's  Privy  Council,  and  one  of  the 
first  authorities  upon  Public  Health,  "contraband 
of  quarantine,  like  ordinary  smuggling,  is  devel- 
oped as  soon  as  the  inducements  for  it  are  con- 
siderable. And  thus,  practically  speaking,  where 
great  commercial  countries  are  concerned,  it  can 
scarcely  be  dreamt  the  quarantine  restrictions  will 
be  anything  better  than  elaborate  illustrations  of 
leakiness."  But  a  second  cause  of  their  failure 
was  the  fact  that  nations  are  so  dependent  upon 
one  another  that  no  isolated  action  by  one  Admin- 
istration could  be  efficacious.  The  most  stringent 
quarantine  laws  are  useless  unless  the  Adminis- 
tration of  the  country  knows  when  to  apply  them. 
But  it  cannot  do  this  unless  it  has  immediate  noti- 
fication of  the  presence  of  cholera  in  other  coun- 
tries. Such  notification  can  only  come  from  the 
Administrations  of  those  countries.  Thus  a  con- 

*  Sir  John  Simon  (Public  Health  Reports,  Vol.  II,  p.  284)  notes  only 
two  proved  cases  of  successful  quarantine,  and  they  were  both  cases  of 
small  islands,  Sicily  and  Dominica,  in  which  quarantine  could  be  applied 
with  the  utmost  stringency.  In  Dominica  health-guards  with  loaded 
muskets  were  stationed  all  round  the  island  to  prevent  anyone  setting  foot 
on  it. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  227 

dition  precedent  to  effective  quarantine  is  the 
establishment  of  an  effective  and  universal  system 
of  international  administration  for  the  notification 
of  the  appearance  of  disease.  It  is  not  unnatural 
that  people  so  wedded  to  the  theory  of  national 
independence  and  isolation  as  the  adherents  of  the 
quarantine  policy  did  not  realize  this.  The  re- 
sult was  that  over  and  over  again  cholera  was 
carried  from  one  port  to  another  port  before  the 
National  Administration  in  the  second  knew  of 
the  presence  of  the  disease  in  the  first.  This  is 
clearly  shown  in  Sir  John  Simon's  account  of  the 
epidemic  of  1865.  It  originated  in  the  return  of 
pilgrims  from  Mecca  to  Suez,  and  Suez  handed 
the  disease  on  to  Alexandria.  But  "before  Alex- 
andria confessed  itself  to  be  infected  it  had  in- 
fected Marseilles.  .  .  .  Then  before  Marseilles 
confessed  itself  infected  Valencia  had  received  a 
most  disastrous  infection  from  or  through  it." 
Altenburg,  in  the  middle  of  Germany,  received  its 
infection  from  Odessa  before  it  learned  that  Odessa 
was  infected,  and  from  Altenburg  the  epidemic 
spread  through  Central  Europe. 

The  great  opponent  of  the  quarantine  system 
was  Britain.  She  had  tried  it  with  most  discour- 
aging results  in  1832,  and  ever  after  that  date- 
medical  expert  opinion  and  the  desires  and  in- 
terests of  the  trader  and  shipowner  have  been  in 
harmony  on  this  matter.  It  became  a  plank  in 
British  foreign  policy  that  her  national  interests 
required  an  unbending  resistance  to  any  inter- 
ference with  shipping.  But  her  reaction  against 


228 


the  quarantines  drove  her  along  the  path  of 
"national  interests"  into  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  for  years  she  put  forward  no  reasonable 
alternative  policy.  Her  fear  of  damaging  her 
"peculiar  interests"  became  an  excuse  for  refusing 
to  agree  to  any  international  action  at  all.  Thus 
essentially  Britain's  policy  was  the  same  as  the 
quarantining  States — "every  State  for  itself,  and 
God  protect  us  all" — the  only  difference  being 
that,  while  the  latter  believed  that  God  would 
protect  from  cholera  the  State  which  restricted 
international  trade,  Britain  believed  that  God 
would  protect  the  State  which  left  shipping  abso- 
lutely free.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  God  protected 
neither,  and  cholera  entered  equally  the  closed 
ports  of  Greece  and  the  open  ports  of  Britain. 

The  steps  by  which  the  quarantiners  were 
driven  by  facts  into  an  international  policy,  and 
Britain  was  driven  by  the  same  facts  to  formulate 
a  national  policy,  which  subsequently  had  to  be- 
come an  international  policy,  are  most  instructive. 
The  latter  country  faced  at  last  the  problem  of 
keeping  out  cholera  by  independent  administra- 
tive action  without  interfering  with  shipping.  It 
gradually  adopted  a  system  which  became  a 
national  policy.  This  consisted  in  inspection  of 
suspected  ships,  the  provision  of  hospitals  at  ports 
and  the  removal  to  them  of  all  diseased  persons, 
the  disinfection  of  infected  ships,  and  the  im- 
provement of  public  sanitation  in  the  country. 
The  essence  of  the  system  was  to  detect  the 
presence  of  the  disease  and  to  deal  at  once  with 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  229 

all  cases  of  disease  by  isolation  in  properly  equipped 
hospitals,  but  in  this  process  to  subject  the  move- 
ment of  men  and  goods  to  as  little  restriction  and 
inconvenience  as  possible.  Accordingly,  only  per- 
sons actually  infected  were  detained;  suspected 
persons  were  allowed  to  enter  the  country  freely, 
provided  only  that  they  could  furnish  an  address 
in  order  that  the  medical  authorities  could  keep 
in  touch  with  them.  But  this  system  itself  proved 
ineffectual  without  international  action.  In  the 
first  place,  it  suffered  from  exactly  the  same  defect 
as  the  quarantine  system  in  clinging  to  independ- 
ent administration.  If  the  presence  of  cholera  in 
Marseilles  was  not  immediately  notified  to  South- 
ampton, cholera  might  already  be  in  the  heart  of 
England  before  the  British  system  had  begun  to 
work  in  our  ports.  Again,  the  refusal  to  enter 
into  international  agreements  and  to  take  inter- 
national action  from  fear  of  endangering  shipping 
and  trading  interests  really  contributed  to  bring 
about  the  results  which  we  hoped  to  avoid.  When 
every  country  went  its  own  unfettered  way  there 
was  no  limit  to  the  inconvenience  and  damage 
which  quarantine  regulations  could  impose  upon 
us  in  foreign  ports.  These  regulations  varied  in 
every  conceivable  way,  and  it  was  no  consolation 
to  the  English  traveler  interned  for  days  in  a 
death-trap  somewhere  in  the  Mediterranean,  or  to 
the  British  shipowner  whose  ship  was  detained  for 
days  in  a  French  port  and  its  cargo  destroyed  by 
disinfection,  to  know  that  men  and  ships  could 
freely  enter  and  leave  all  British  ports. 


230 


For  sixty  years  European  States  continued  to 
maintain  the  obsolete  independence  of  their  Na- 
tional Administrations,  and  to  follow  blindly  what 
they  called  vital  national  interests.  Meanwhile 
trade  and  international  intercourse  suffered,  and 
cholera  entered  freely  quarantine  and  non-quar- 
antine countries  at  regular  intervals.  Each  epi- 
demic after  1851  was  followed  by  an  International 
Diplomatic  Conference,  but  for  forty  years  "con- 
flicting national  interests"  made  agreement  im- 
possible. But  those  forty  years  were  not  fruitless, 
because  all  the  time  the  inevitable  logic  of  facts 
was  destroying  the  fictions  of  national  diplomacies. 
Every  epidemic  showed  more  clearly  that  the 
British  view  of  the  futility  of  quarantine  was  cor- 
rect, and  that  the  British  system  was  equally 
futile  without  international  agreement  and  action. 
When,  therefore,  the  last  European  epidemic  of 
the  century  broke  out  in  1892  the  two  opposing 
parties  found  that  they  had  drawn  together,  and 
that  all  the  interests  of  all  the  nations  required 
common  international  action.  The  immediate  re- 
sult was  the  signing  of  the  first  International  Sani- 
tary Convention  at  a  Diplomatic  Conference  in 
1892,  and  this  was  followed  by  another  Conference 
and  another  Convention  in  the  following  year. 

The  provisions  of  these  first  international  agree- 
ments are  well  worthy  of  study.  That  of  1892  * 
is  perhaps  more  concerned  with  pilgrim  traffic 
than  with  trade.  It  deals  with  one  particular 

*  Signed    by    thirteen    States,    including    Germany,    Austria-Hungary, 
France,  Great  Britain,  Italy,  and  Russia. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  231 

locality— ^the  Suez  Canal — and  lays  down  inter- 
national sanitary  and  quarantine  measures  to  be 
applied  to  ships  passing  through  the  Canal.  It 
also  deals  with  the  functions  of  an  international 
organ,  the  Conseil  sanitaire,  maritime,  et  quar- 
antenaire  d'Egypte,  which  had  been  established  in 
1 88 1  to  act  as  an  international  guard  at  that  dan- 
gerous passage  for  disease  between  Asia  and 
Europe.  This  Convention  is  a  recognition  of  the 
necessity  of  the  establishment  under  international 
administration  of  a  barrier  against  disease  at  that 
spot  where  the  streams  of  pilgrim  traffic  and  of 
trading  traffic  approach  one  another.  The  Conven- 
tion signed  at  Dresden  in  1893  is  of  more  general 
application,  and  its  provisions  affect  the  question 
not  of  pilgrim  but  of  commercial  traffic.  It  deals 
with  two  questions — the  international  notification 
of  the  existence  of  cholera  and  international  pro- 
phylactic measures.  In  the  first  place,  it  makes  the 
international  notification  of  the  outbreak  of  disease 
obligatory.  It  then  deals  with  the  vexed  ques- 
tion of  quarantine.  And  it  is  remarkable  that 
the  Dresden  Conference,  the  first  to  reach  an 
agreement  upon  this  subject,  proceeded,  as  the 
Austrian  and  German  delegates  foreshadowed  in 
their  opening  speeches,  to  lay  down  not  the  mini- 
mum of  prophylactic  measures  which  each  country 
must  adopt,  but  the  maximum  of  such  measures 
which  European  States  were  not  to  exceed.  It 
was  recognized  that,  in  order  to  establish  uniform 
international  administrative  action,  a  beginning 
must  be  made  by  stating  those  measures  which 


232  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

had  been  proved  "excessive  and  useless/'  and  by 
forbidding  their  adoption  by  national  adminis- 
trations. This  was,  of  course,  in  one  sense  a  vic- 
tory for  British  national  policy,  for  it  involved 
the  acceptance  of  our  contention  that  the  vital 
interests  of  no  one  State  required  that  it  should 
impose  regulations  making  international  trade  im- 
possible. On  the  other  hand,  it  also  involved  the 
abandonment  of  the  British  contention  that  the 
vital  interests  of  British  trade  made  it  impossible 
to  enter  into  an  international  agreement  limiting 
our  freedom  of  administrative  action  on  questions 
affecting  shipping.  When  we  signed  the  Conven- 
tion of  1893  we  admitted  that  the  freedom  of  in- 
ternational trade  could  itself  not  be  secured  with- 
out some  international  regulation  of  the  relation 
of  States  as  regards  the  administration  of  pro- 
phylactic measures  in  ports — in  other  words, 
without  International  Government.  The  Con- 
vention of  1893  marks  one  more  breakdown  of 
national  government  when  applied  to  international 
and,  therefore,  to  national  interests  created  in  the 
nineteenth  century. 

I  do  not  propose  to  give  the  detailed  provisions 
of  the  Conventions  of  1892  and  1893,  because  the 
diplomatic  conferences  held  regularly  since  then, 
in  1897,  1903,  and  1911-1912,  have  modified  them, 
and  I  shall  later  briefly  deal  with  the  Convention 
of  1903,*  which  is  a  complete  code  of  the  Inter- 
national Legislation  applied  to  epidemic  diseases, 


"The  Convention  of  1911-12  has  not  been  ratified,  owing  to  the  war. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  233 

and  expressly  repeals  previous  Conventions.  Be- 
fore doing  so,  it  is  necessary  to  say  a  few  words 
on  the  question  of  pilgrim  traffic  and  the  history 
of  the  attempts  to  apply  international  adminis- 
tration to  its  regulation.  The  problem  of  cholera 
and  the  Mohammedan  pilgrimages  is  not  quite 
the  same  as  that  of  commercial  shipping.  The 
pilgrimages  take  place  within  the  Turkish  Em- 
pire very  near  to  the  meeting-place  of  three  con- 
tinents: the  whole  world  must,  therefore,  be 
endangered  by  any  laxity  on  the  part  of  the 
Turkish  Government  in  applying  sanitary  regu- 
lations to  this  dangerous  traffic.  But  that  Gov- 
ernment is  typically  Eastern,  and  is  incapable  of 
and  hostile  to  any  system  other  than  that  of 
laissez-faire:  and  so  it  very  soon  became  clear  to 
the  civilized  States  of  Europe  that  the  coexistence 
of  the  modern  steamships  and  railways  with  Turk- 
ish ideas  of  sanitation  and  sanitary  regulation 
must  infallibly  subject  European  countries  to 
periodical  invasions  of  cholera.  Here  again  we 
find  the  growth  of  a  peculiar  international  interest 
in  the  sanitation  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  and 
again  resort  has  to  be  made  to  international  ad- 
ministration. As  early  as  1838  the  Sultan  was 
induced  to  agree  to  the  establishment  of  an 
international  organ,  the  Conseil  superieur  de 
Sante  of  Constantinople,  composed  of  delegates 
of  the  Turkish  Empire  and  the  chief  maritime 
Powers,  to  which  the  task  of  supervising  the  sani- 
tary regulation  of  Turkish  ports  was  entrusted. 
In  1 88 1,  when  Egypt  was  entering  the  orbit  of 

17 


234  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  British  Empire,  a  special  and  similar  Council, 
the  Conseil  sanitaire,  maritime,  et  quarantenaire 
d'Egypte,  was  established  for  that  country  in 
Alexandria,  and  international  councils  of  the  same 
type  have  been  created  at  Teheran  and  Tangier 
to  perform  the  same  functions  for  Persia  and 
Morocco.  After.  1892,  when  agreement  was  at 
last  arrived  at  as  to  the  form  which  the  inter- 
national administration  to  be  applied  to  diseases 
should  take,  the  Sanitary  Conventions  contain 
most  elaborate  particulars  of  the  administration 
to  be  applied  by  these  councils. 

The  history  of  the  four  international  councils 
will  probably  be  claimed  by  the. "  Nationalist "  as 
proof  of  the  futility  of  international  action  and  of 
the  inevitable  submission  of  international  to 
national  interests.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe 
that  the  little  which  we  are  permitted  to  know  of 
what  has  happened  at  Constantinople,  Alexandria, 
Tangier,  and  Teheran  goes  to  prove  the  truth  of 
everything  which  I  have  said  regarding  national 
and  international  interests,  their  relations  and 
relative  values.  The  charge  of  failure  against  in- 
ternationalism will  rest  upon  the  proceedings  at 
Constantinople  and  Teheran.  For  many  years 
before  the  war  the  Conseil  superieur  de  Sante  of 
Constantinople  and  the  Teheran  Council  were 
simply  hotbeds  of  political  intrigue.  The  details 
of  these  intrigues  are  not  available,  but  it  seems  to 
be  indisputable  that  Germany,  with  the  help  of 
Austria,  deliberately  set  out  to  oppose  Britain  on 
every  conceivable  opportunity  within  the  coun- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  235 

cils.  The  campaign  was  carried  out  without  any 
regard  to  the  objects  of  the  sanitary  conventions 
and  the  protection  of  Turkey,  Persia,  and  Europe 
from  disease.  It  was  part  of  a  larger  campaign 
inaugurated  by  the  German  Government  for  es- 
tablishing the  political  predominance  of  Germany 
in  the  Near  East,  and  for  destroying  the  political 
position  of  Britain  in  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  Con- 
stantinople Council  furnished  an  admirable  terrain 
for  this  kind  of  politico-diplomatic  manoeuvring. 
The  funds  of  the  Council  were  provided  by  taxa- 
tion of  shipping,  and  since  British  commerce  is 
predominant,  the  work  of  the  Council  was  being 
financed  mainly  by  British  shipping.  It  was 
naturally  peculiarly  exasperating  for  our  diplo- 
matists, who,  in  such  circumstances,  identify 
British  shipowners  and  their  interests  with  Great 
Britain  and  her  interests,*  to  feel  that  "Great 
Britain"  was  always  paying  the  piper  and  never 
being  allowed,  owing  to  German  intrigues,  to  call 
the  tune.  And  so,  when  the  German  delegate 
contrived  to  prevent  the  Turkish  Government 
from  putting  up  urgently  needed  hospital  accom- 
modation in  some  Turkish  port  because  the  pro- 
posal came  from  the  British  delegate,  he  had  the 
satisfaction  of  feeling  that  he  was  not  only  ex- 
asperating the  British  diplomatists,  but  "dealing 
a  blow  at  British  prestige  in  the  Near  East." 


*This  is  one  of  the  commonest  "Nationalist"  fallacies.  It  is  worth 
remarking  that  the  Nationalist  diplomatist  rarely,  if  ever,  identifies  the 
British  working  classes  and  their  interests  with  Great  Britain  and  her 
interests. 


236  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Matters  eventually  reached  such  a  pass  that  in 
1914  the  Turkish  Government,  presumably  with 
the  approval  of  Germany,  issued  a  declaration 
denying  the  right  of  the  Council  to  act  in  Turkey. 
International  administration,  it  may  be  at  once 
admitted,  has  proved  in  these  two  Councils  a  fail- 
ure, but  it  does  not  follow  that  International 
Government  is  impossible.  Under  slightly  dif- 
ferent circumstances  the  similar  Council  has  in 
Alexandria  experienced  none  of  the  Constanti- 
nople difficulties.  Here  we  have  an  international 
administrative  organ  with  a  technical  staff  of 
eighty-seven  international  health  officers,  etc., 
with  an  expenditure  annually  of  £80,000,  derived 
from  an  international  tax  levied  upon  ships  and 
pilgrims.  But  the  true  significance  of  the  failure 
of  International  Government  in  the  Constanti- 
nople and  Teheran  Councils  can  only  be  grasped 
by  considering  what  part  national  interests  played 
there.  The  objection  made  to  International  Gov- 
ernment is  that  it  is  incompatible  with  the  prose- 
cution by  each  State  of  its  real  interests.  But  is 
it  possible  to  argue  that  International  Govern- 
ment was  rendered  impossible  in  the  Sanitary 
Councils  by  Germany  and  Britain  prosecuting 
anything  which  a  sane  man  could  call  a  "real 
interest"  of  either?  It  was  certainly  a  vital  in- 
*  terest  not  only  of  Germany  and  Britain,  but  of 
every  State  in  Europe — if  the  "State"  has  any 
connection  with  the  individuals  who  compose  it 
— that  Turkey  and  Persia,  by  their  lack  of  admin- 
istration, should  not  be  allowed  to  infect  them- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  237 

selves  with  cholera  from  Arabia  and  the  Persian 
Gulf,  and  then  spread  it  along  the  trade  routes 
over  Europe,  as  they  had  done  more  than  once 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  And  what  were  the 
"vital  national  interests"  for  which  Germany  and 
Britain  abandoned  these  vital  national  and  inter- 
national interests?  They  are  interests  of  a  polit- 
ical and  diplomatic  nature  so  vague  and  illusory 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  define  them  at  all 
in  the  language  of  ordinary  men.  First  and  fore- 
most, there  is  national  prestige — that  extraordinary 
idol  of  the  diplomatic  cave.  The  directors  of 
German  and  British  policy  really  believed  that  if 
Germany  contrived  perpetually  to  defeat  British 
proposals  in  the  Councils  at  Constantinople  and 
Teheran,  British  prestige  would  suffer  in  Asia 
Minor  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  But  anyone  with 
any  knowledge  of  the  life  of  the  people  in  the  East 
or,  for  that  matter,  anywhere  else,  would  know 
that  not  one  in  a  million  inhabitants  of  Asia  Minor 
or  the  Arabs  of  the  Gulf  would  ever  hear  of  what 
took  place  in  a  Sanitary  Council  in  Constantinople 
or  Teheran.  In  the  Persian  Gulf  British  prestige, 
in  so  far  as  it  exists  at  all,  rests  upon  the  light- 
houses which  we  set  up  and  maintain  in  its  waters; 
on  the  British  India  Steam  Navigation  Company's 
steamers,  which  regularly  call  at  its  ports;  and 
H.M.S.  Highflyer  and  Hyacinth,  which  used  to 
police  its  waters  and  capture  its  dhows  when 
engaged  in  illicit  traffic  in  arms.  The  British  pres- 
tige which  Germany  struck  at  by  thwarting 
British  proposals  in  the  Councils  and  by  inciting 


238  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Turks  and  Persians  not  to  carry  out  sanitary 
measures  suggested  by  Britain  was  a  reputation 
for  firmness  and  diplomatic  adroitness  confined  to 
a  tiny  circle  of  Government  servants  and  diplo- 
matists. Thus  in  this  case  the  national  interests 
of  Germany  and  England,  covered  by  the  names 
of  prestige  and  political  predominance,  under 
analysis  appear  to  be  nothing  but  the  maintenance 
of  a  reputation  among  half  a  dozen  deorientalized 
Orientals  and  European  diplomatists  for  diplo- 
matic obstinacy  and  unscrupulousness.*  Then 
there  are  the  national  interests  of  political  power 
and  commerce.  A  moment's  consideration  will 
show  that  in  these  spheres,  too,  the  diplomatic 
view,  which  we  are  asked  to  adopt  and  act  upon 
in  foreign  policy,  is  founded  upon  delusion.  If 
the  German  delegate  had  succeeded  in  out- 
manoeuvring and  outvoting  the  British  delegate 
on  every  question  which  came  before  the  Councils 
for  ten  centuries  it  could  not  possibly  have  in- 
creased the  political  power  of  Germany  or  de- 
creased that  of  Britain  one  jot,  nor  could  it  have 
produced  the  transference  of  one  cargo  from  a 
British  to  a  German  firm  or  ship.  The  only 
practical  effect  that  it  could  have  was  upon  the 
sanitation  of  Turkish  ports  and  the  spread  of 
cholera  from  Asia  to  Europe. 


*This  is  a  very  good  example  of  the  emptiness  of  national  prestige. 
Diplomatists  naturally  look  upon  prestige  as  the  result  of  diplomatic 
triumphs.  They  labor  urder  the  common  human  delusion  that  their  own 
personal  triumphs  and  failures  are  noticed  by  or  affect  anyone  other  than 
themselves. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  239 

In  other  words,  the  national  interests  which 
Germany  and  Britain  prosecuted  in  these  Coun- 
cils, and  which  made  the  International  Govern- 
ment impossible,  were  delusions  and  illusions. 
The  real  national  interests  were  the  international 
interests.  And  that  is  all  which  at  present  I  am 
concerned  to  establish.  If  the  civilized  peoples 
of  twentieth-century  Europe  are  determined  to 
pursue  illusory  and  imaginary  national  interests 
rather  than  true  national  interests,  then,  of  course, 
International  Government  may  really  prove  im- 
possible. But  that  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  statement  that  International  Government  is 
impossible  because  it  does  not  allow  nations  to 
prosecute  their  own  peculiar  interests.  It  may  be 
quite  true  that  the  dog  in  the  fable  lost  his  bone 
by  snapping  at  its  shadow  in  the  water,  but  no 
canine  argument  could  alter  the  fact  that  the  real 
bone  was  in  his  mouth,  and  only  the  shadow  of  a 
bone  in  the  water.  And  the  future  of  the  dog  in 
his  relation  to  bones,  and  of  man  in  relation  to 
the  universe,  depends  upon  learning  by  experience 
the  difference  between  shadows  and  reality. 

It  remains  to  indicate  briefly  the  International 
Administration  as  regards  sanitation,  which  had 
been  evolved  at  the  time  of  the  Sanitary  Con- 
vention of  1903.  That  Convention,  which  applies 
both  to  plague  and  cholera,  consists  of  three  parts, 
of  which  the  first  deals  with  the  general  problem 
of  shipping  and  commerce,  the  second  with  ordi- 
nary shipping  in  the  Suez  Canal  and  Persian  Gulf, 
and  the  third  with  that  of  the  pilgrimages.  Part 


240  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

I  imposes  certain  uniform  international  rules  upon 
the  National  Administrations.  It  establishes  obli- 
gatory notification  of  disease  to  the  different  Ad- 
ministrations, and  prescribes  the  method  of  noti- 
fication and  the  detailed  information  to  be  notified. 
It  prescribes  what  articles  and  merchandise  may, 
and  what  may  not,  be  treated  as  capable  of  con- 
veying plague  or  cholera,  and  may  be  subjected 
to  disinfection  or  restriction,  the  measures  to  be 
adopted  at  ports  in  the  case  of  infected  ships,  the 
maximum  period  of  quarantine,  and  the  provision 
by  each  Administration  of  at  least  one  port  with 
an  organization  and  equipment  sufficient  for  the 
reception  of  a  ship,  whatever  its  health  conditions 
may  be.  Parts  II  and  III  set  up  an  elaborate 
system  of  International  Administration  in  places 
outside  Europe,  such  as  the  Suez  Canal  and 
Persian  Gulf,  and  for  pilgrim  traffic.  The  inter- 
national regulation  and  inspection  of  shipping  in 
these  places  is  laid  down  in  great  detail,  as  well 
as  the  methods  of  disinfection  and  quarantine, 
the  provision  .  of  buildings,  hospitals,  and  appa- 
ratus, the  number  and  the  salaries  of  the  medical 
officers  to  be  stationed  at  particular  places.  The 
International  Sanitary  Councils  are  recognized  as 
the  authorities  for  carrying  out  these  regulations, 
and  their  constitution  is  defined.*  Provision  is 


*  The  "composition,  functions,  and  the  manner  of  discharge  of  the 
functions"  of  the  Conseil  Sanitaire,  etc.,  d'Egypte  as  fixed  by  Annexed 
III  of  the  Sanitary  Convention  of  Venice  of  1892  and  by  Khedival  Decrees 
of  1893  and  1894  and  a  Ministerial  Order  of  1894,  but  the  provisions  of 
all  these  are  "confirmed"  by  Article  162  of  the  Convention  of  1903. 
Article  165  of  the  1903  Convention  lays  down  that  "  the  framing  of  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  241 

made  for  meeting  the  cost  of  the  sanitary  services 
by  taxes  on  shipping  and  a  quarantine  charge  on 
each  pilgrim,  and  the  proportion  of  expenses  to  be 
borne  by  the  Turkish  and  Egyptian  Governments 
and  the  Sanitary  Councils  respectively  are  fixed. 
Chapter  III  of  Part  III,  Articles  151-161,  defines 
the  penalties  to  which  ship  captains  and  others 
shall  become  liable  for  infringement  of  the  various 
regulations  of  the  Convention — one  of  the  very 
rare  examples  of  the  creation  by  International 
Convention  of  international  legal  offenses.  Arti- 
cles 173  and  174  set  up  a  Consular  Commission, 
an  International  Appeal  Court  to  try  cases  in 
which  in  Turkish  ports  contradictory  statements 
are  made  by  sanitary  agents  and  incriminated 
captains  regarding  infringements.  The  fines  levied 
under  the  penalty  clauses  of  the  Convention  are 
paid  to  the  Sanitary  Councils. 

It  remains  to  deal  with  one  other  question  con- 
nected with  the  international  interest  of  Public 
Health.  Article  181  of  the  Convention  of  1903 
decided  to  create  an  International  Office  of  Public 
Health  in  Paris.  Accordingly,  in  1907,  the  Office 
international  d'Hygiene  publique  was  established 
by  an  Arrangement  signed  by  twelve  States.  At 
the  end  of  1915  thirty-two  States,  including  col- 
onies, etc.,  with  separate  representation,  adhered. 
This  Union  has  suffered  by  the  refusal  of  Germany 


measures  to  be  taken  with  a  view  to  prevent  the  introduction  into  the 
Turkish  Empire  and  the  transmission  to  other  countries  of  epidemic  dis- 
eases devolves  upon  the  Constantinople  Superior  Board  of  Health."  The 
following  articles,  166-175,  deal  with  its  composition,  etc. 


242  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

and  Austria  to  take  any  part  in  it,  because  the 
Office  was  not  established  in  Berlin — another  case 
in  which  an  imaginary  national  interest  has  been 
preferred  to  a  real  international  interest  by  a 
diplomatic  service.  The  principal  object  of  the 
Office  is  to  collect  documents  and  information  re- 
garding Public  Health,  and  to  bring  them  to  the 
notice  of  adhering  States.  It  publishes  a  valuable 
Monthly  Bulletin  containing  Public  Health  Sta- 
tistics, the  Sanitary  Conventions,  Laws,  and  Regu- 
lations made  by  the  different  countries,  and  other 
information,  which  could  hardly  be  produced  ex- 
cept by  public  international  action.  Another  of 
its  functions  is  to  propose  modifications  in  the 
Sanitary  Convention.  It  corresponds  direct  with 
the  Sanitary  Councils.  It  is  controlled  by  an 
International  Committee,  composed  of  technical 
representatives  of  States.  Its  staff  consists  of 
a  Director  and  Secretary,  appointed  by  the  Com- 
mittee, and  subordinates.  The  number  of  votes 
allowed  to  each  State  in  the  Committee  is  in- 
versely proportional  to  the  number  of  the  category 
to  which  such  State  belongs  for  the  purpose  of 
determining  its  contribution  to  the  expenses  of 
the  Office.  The  number  of  categories  is  six,  those 
States  placed  in  category  Number  I  contributing 
twenty-five  units,  and  those  in  category  Number 
6  three  units. 

C. — Industry  and  Commerce 

Industry  and  Commerce  nowhere  form  part  of 
the  administrative  activities  of  States  to  the  same 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  243 

extent  as  either  Communications  or  Public  Health. 
The  internationalization  of  these  departments  of 
life  could  not  therefore  take  place  through  inter- 
nationalization of  public  administration,  though, 
as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  it  has 
taken  place  under  other  forms  of  International 
Government.  Yet  administration  in  the  indi- 
vidual State  necessarily  touches  the  industrial 
system  at  many  points  and  is  ancillary  to  it:  in 
fact,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  our  industrial 
system  could  continue  at  all  unless  the  State 
continued  to  perform  certain  Public  Services. 
And  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  need  for  international 
rather  than  national  administration  has  subse- 
quently appeared,  the  inadequacy  of  the  ordinary 
conception  of  the  isolated  independent  State  is 
manifest,  and  the  relation  of  international  inter- 
ests to  the  apparent  interests  of  individual  States 
is  worthy  of  study. 

In  international,  industrial,  and  commercial  re- 
lations, etc.,  loss  and  inconvenience  necessarily 
result  from  uncertainty  or  lack  of  uniformity  in 
the  machinery  of  commerce.  Where  the  State 
regulates  or  controls  any  part  of  that  machinery, 
uniformity  of  administration  becomes  an  inter- 
national interest.  There  are  several  such  cases  in 
which  already  international  administration  has 
taken  the  place  of  national.  The  Latin,  Scan- 
dinavian, and  Central  American  Monetary  Unions 
unify  the  monetary  systems  or  coinage  of  the 
States  which  adhere  to  them,  and  the  independence 
of  the  national  administrations  as  regards  their 


244  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

coinage  is  materially  limited  by  the  international 
administration  which  the  various  Conventions  set 
up.  In  another  sphere,  that  of  weights  and 
measures,  by  the  establishment  of  the  Metric 
Union  under  the  Convention  of  1875,  the  twenty- 
six  States  which  now  adhere  have  adopted  in  the 
international  kilogramme  and  metre,  the  proto- 
types of  which  are  deposited  with  the  International 
Bureau  of  the  Union  at  Paris,  international  in- 
stead of  national  units  of  mass  and  length.  This 
Union  again  has  directly  led,  since  1905,  to  the 
adoption  by  nearly  all  countries  of  a  uniform  legal 
metric  carat  of  200  milligrammes  in  place  of  a 
carat  which  varied  from  188.5  milligrammes  in 
Italy  to  254.6  in  Arabia.  I  do  not  propose  to 
consider  in  detail  the  International  Government 
which,  in  these  cases,  has  produced  uniformity  of 
administration,  partly  because  the  lessons  to  be 
learnt  from  it  are  much  the  same  as  those  already 
learnt  from  the  history  of  the  Postal  and  Tele- 
graphic Union,  partly  because  I  desire  to  devote 
my  space  to  an  "International  Union,"  the  In- 
stitute of  Agriculture,  which  at  first  sight  appears 
to  have  accomplished  far  less,  but  the  history  of 
which  throws  more  light  upon  the  relations  of 
national  and  international  interests. 

Before  dealing  with  that  Institute  there  are, 
however,  two  points  which  deserve  a  passing  men- 
tion. The  first  is  this:  As  to  the  relative  value 
of  international  or  national  administration,  where 
administration  touches  industry  and  commerce, 
the  business  community  of  the  world  seems  to  be 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  245 

in  no  doubt.  The  business  man  in  every  country 
is  a  confirmed  internationalist.  The  unanimous 
resolutions  of  the  International  Congress  of  Cham- 
bers of  Commerce,*  at  which  practically  all  the 
important  Chambers  of  Commerce  of  the  world 
are  represented,  show  this.  These  Congresses  are 
Parliaments  of  the  leading  commercial  opinion  of 
all  countries,  and  they  prove  that  commercial 
opinion  is  far  more  favorable  towards  international- 
ism than  opinion  in  the  diplomatic  and  adminis- 
trative services  of  the  different  States.  The  reso- 
lutions are  almost  entirely  occupied  with  pressing 
the  Governments  to  take  steps  to  internationalize 
administration,  legislation,  etc.  Thus,  the  ques- 
tion of  uniformity  in  the  compilation  of  customs 
statistics  is  of  great  importance  to  commerce. 
Ever  since  1853  it  has  been  pressed  upon  Govern- 
ments by  individuals  and  associations  of  indi- 
viduals. In  1870  a  diplomatic  Conference  was  at 
last  summoned,  but  led  to  nothing.  In  1890  a 
very  small  step  was  taken  when  the  International 
Union  and  Bureau  for  the  Publication  of  Customs 
Tariffs  was  established  by  a  Convention  to  which 
over  forty  States  now  adhere.  This  Union  sets 
up  international  administration  for  the  purpose  of 
a  regular  and  comprehensive  publication  of  all 
customs  tariffs,  laws,  and  treaties,  and  so  makes 
indirectly  for  uniformity.  But  the  uniformity  de- 
sired by  commercial  men  was  very  far  from  being 
attained.  Pressure  from  them  and  from  various 


*  Vide  also  page  328. 


246  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

international  associations  *  led  to  an  International 
Conference  of  twenty-six  States  meeting  in  1910, 
at  which  certain  principles  were  accepted  and 
products  divided  into  five  large  classes  for  tariff 
purposes.  A  special  Commission  was  appointed, 
and  after  some  study  sub-divided  the  five  classes 
into  185  sub-classes.  This  classification  still  awaits 
the  calling  of  another  Conference,  and  its  em- 
bodiment in  an  international  agreement.  Mean- 
while, the  business  men  in  the  Chambers  of  Com- 
merce are  still  asking  for  an  International  Bureau 
of  Statistics  and  for  international  administration 
which  will  ensure  "uniformity  in  the  compilation 
of  customs  statistics,  and  particularly  in  regard  to 
methods  of  valuation  of  imports  and  exports." 
And  the  same  business  men  were  in  1912  pressing 
the  Governments  to  establish  a  Uniform  Inter- 
national Calendar  and  a  fixed  date  for  Easter,  an 
international  law  of  cheques,  a  uniform  interna- 
tional system  of  Consular  invoices,  etc. 

The  second  point  which  merits  a  brief  reference 
is  the  significance  of  that  curious  and  anomalous 
international  organism,  the  Permanent  Sugar  Com- 
mission. Into  the  rights  and  the  wrongs  and  the 
details  of  the  Sugar  Convention  of  1902,  which 
was  eventually  signed  by  fourteen  States  (includ- 
ing Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  France,  Great 


*  Besides  the  International  Congress  of  Chambers  of  Commerce,  the 
Congres  Internationale  de  la  Reglementation  douaniere,  the  Congres 
d'Expansion  Economique  mondiale,  the  International  Statistic  Institute, 
and  the  Union  Economique  internationale  have  all  pressed  for  Govern- 
mental action. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  247 

Britain,  Italy,  and  Russia),  I  do  not  propose  to 
enter,  but  the  Convention  clearly  violates  all  the 
ordinary  doctrines  of  independent  national  action. 
It  was  an  attempt  to  deal  with  the  abuses  of  the 
bounty  system,  and  it  was  a  confession  that  those 
abuses — which  are  themselves  the  results  of  the 
extreme  individualist  view  of  national  interests — 
could  only  be  dealt  with  by  drastic  limitation  of 
national  independence  and  an  advanced  form  of 
international  administration.  The  signatory  States 
bound  themselves  to  abolish  sugar  bounties,  not  to 
impose  import  duties  exceeding  a  certain  maximum, 
and  to  impose  a  countervailing  duty  upon  im- 
ported bounty-fed  sugar.  It  set  up  an  inter- 
national administration  in  the  Permanent  Com- 
mission to  carry  out  these  provisions.  The  Com- 
mission determines  whether  sugar  is  or  is  not 
bounty-fed,  and,  if  it  is,  the  rate  of  countervailing 
duty  to  be  imposed  upon  its  importation  into  the 
several  signatory  States.  These  States  are  bound 
by  the  decisions  of  the  Commission,  which  are 
arrived  at  by  a  majority  vote.  But  certain  ex- 
porting countries,  e.  g.,  Russia,  also  bound  them- 
selves not  to  authorize  exportation  of  sugar  ex- 
ceeding a  certain  quantity  per  year,  and  the  yearly 
quantities  to  be  authorized  were  revised  by  the 
Commission.  Thus  here  we  find  the  power  of  the 
State  over  its  own  tariff  and  its  right  to  export  its 
own  produce  subjected  to  International  Govern- 
ment. The  independence  of  the  sovereign  States 
had  worn  very  thin  in  the  provisions  of  the  Brus- 
sels Convention  of  1902. 


248  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

We  have  the  authority  of  the  Book  of  Genesis 
for  saying  that  agriculture  is  the  oldest  of  all 
human  industries.  It  still  remains  probably  the 
most  important.  The  proposal  of  an  eminent 
American  citizen  of  the  twentieth  century  to  set 
up  an  organ  of  International  Government  in  order 
to  watch  over  and  promote  the  international  in- 
terests of  this  industry,  and  the  fate  of  that  pro- 
posal, throw  much  light  on  the  problem  which  I 
have  been  considering  in  this  chapter.  Mr.  Lubin 
was  struck  by  the  fact  that  the  interests  involved 
in  agriculture,  so  far  as  the  human  race  is  con- 
cerned, are  for  the  most  part  uninfluenced  by 
national  frontiers.  The  nineteenth  century  revo- 
lution in  international  communications  has  also 
revolutionized  agriculture.  The  material  earth 
upon  and  about  which  men  have  built  their  the- 
oretical conception  of  the  individual  State  is 
international  in  the  sense  that  its  produce  is 
grown  to  feed  foreigners  in  all  the  ends  of  the  two 
hemispheres.  A  heavy  crop  in  Asia,  a  hailstorm 
in  America,  the  knowledge  of  agricultural  science 
on  the  steppes  of  Russia,  may  all  vitally  affect 
millions  of  Western  Europeans.  The  diffusion  of 
the  knowledge  of  scientific  inventions  and  new 
methods  affecting  agriculture  is  an  international 
interest  which  cannot  adequately  be  served  by 
isolated  national  action.  Moreover,  just  as  we 
saw  that  the  growth  of  international  intercourse 
enormously  increases  the  danger  of  the  spread  of 
human  epidemic  diseases,  so  the  exchange  of  agri- 
cultural produce  between  nations  leads  to  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  249 

introduction  and  diffusion  of  pests  and  diseases 
disastrous  to  agriculture — and  in  this  case,  too, 
only  international  action  can  afford  protection. 
Lastly,  the  internationalization  of  food  production 
has  created  a  new  complication  of  interests.  When 
Adam  delved  and  himself  consumed  the  produce 
of  his  delving — a  condition  of  affairs  which  ob- 
tained in  many  parts  of  the  world  even  in  com- 
paratively recent  times — or  even  when  the  in- 
habitants of  small  areas  relied  for  their  food 
mainly  upon  the  agricultural  produce  of  those 
areas,  group  interests  were  simple,  and  were 
closely  connected  with  geographical  boundaries. 
In  such  a  state  of  society  group  interests  did  for 
the  most  part  follow  national  frontiers.  But  when 
the  inhabitants  of  Lancashire  depend  upon  the 
wheat  growers  of  Asia  and  America  for  their 
bread,  innumerable  intermediaries  between  the 
groups  of  agricultural  producers  and  consumers 
are  interposed,  and  the  interests  of  these  many 
groups  refuse  to  follow  national  boundaries.  The 
interests  of  the  American  farmer  and  the  Lan- 
cashire consumer,  as  against  those  of  the  cosmo- 
politan shippers,  agents,  brokers,  merchants,  and 
speculators,  may  be  identical,  namely,  that  the 
wheat  shall  be  transported  from  America  to  Lan- 
cashire for  a  reasonable  sum  which  will  cover  the 
cost  of  carriage  and  distribution.  The  price 
which  the  original  producer  can  demand  and  the 
final  consumer  ought  to  pay  is  influenced  by  the 
state  of  the  world's  crops  at  any  particular  mo- 
ment, and  also  by  their  knowledge  of  the  condi- 
18 


250  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

tions  of  supply  and  demand.  It  is  the  superior 
knowledge  of  these  conditions  possessed  by  specu- 
lators and  other  intermediaries  which  allows  them 
to  promote  their  own  interests  by  making  the 
original  producer  take  less  and  the  consumer  pay 
more  than  he  should.  Thus  the  interests  of  the 
millions  of  Russian,  Indian,  and  American  wheat- 
growers  are  identical  when  opposed  to  the  group 
interests  of  the  British,  German,  and  American 
shipowners,  or  the  group  interests  of  the  cosmo- 
politan speculators;  the  group  interests  of  British 
and  German  consumers,  again,  are  opposed  to 
the  group  interests  of  British  and  German  ship- 
owners, and  are  identical  in  this  respect  with  the 
group  interests  of  Russian,  Indian,  and  American 
wheat-growers.  Now,  our  ordinary  conception 
of  the  nature  of  States,  and  of  the  system  of 
national  government  and  of  international  rela- 
tions which  is  founded  upon  that  conception,  re- 
fuses any  recognition  to  these  complicated  group- 
ings of  interests:  it  is  a  fundamental  assumption 
of  "foreign  policy"  that  the  interests  of  all  Eng- 
lishmen in  relation  to  all  Germans  and  Americans, 
and  of  all  Germans  and  all  Americans  in  relation 
to  all  Englishmen,  are  identical.  (This  results 
from  the  fact  that  our  conceptions  of  the  "State," 
of  "government,"  and  of  "international  relations" 
belong  to  a  condition  of  society  which  finally 
passed  away  in  the  eighteenth  century.)  Hence 
national  government  breaks  down  and  proves  to 
be  incapable  of  dealing  with  a  question  like  this 
of  agriculture  because  its  rigid  lines  cut  right 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  251 

across  those  lines  in  which  the  vital  interests  of 
human  groups  now  run.  Only  some  form  of 
International  Government  which  ensures  repre- 
sentation of  these  vast  group-interests  could  deal 
with  these  problems. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  air  of  his  native  place, 
California — where,  if  anywhere,  the  oldest  in- 
dustry should  be  touched  by  the  spirit  of  the 
New  World — that  impressed  some  of  these  con- 
siderations upon  the  mind  and  imagination  of 
Mr.  Lubin.  At  any  rate,  in  the  year  1904  he  laid 
before  the  King  of  Italy  a  scheme  under  which 
the  nations  of  the  world  were  to  unite  in  estab- 
lishing a  system  of  International  Government  to 
promote  and  protect  international  agricultural  in- 
terests, and  he  so  fired  the  imagination  of  the 
monarch  that  the  Italian  Government  invited  the 
other  Governments  to  send  delegates  to  a  Diplo- 
matic Conference  upon  the  subject  at  Rome. 
Mr.  Lubin's  scheme  was  conceived  on  a  wide  and 
revolutionary  scale.  His  Union  of  States  was  to 
collect  and  publish  and  distribute  information  of 
all  kinds  regarding  agriculture.  In  this  way  he 
hoped  not  only  to  promote  the  knowledge  of 
agricultural  science,  but,  by  disseminating  broad- 
cast at  regular  intervals  accurate  information  as 
to  the  condition  and  yield  of  the  world's  crops,  to 
check  that  speculative  manipulation  of  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world's  food  which  allows  a  tiny 
minority  to  profit  at  the  expense  of  an  enormous 
majority  of  human  beings.  Then  he  drew  atten- 
tion to  the  heavy  freights  and  railway  charges 


252  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

which  handicap  producers,  pointing  out  that  be- 
tween producer  and  consumer  are  dealers,  etc., 
in  command  of  adequate  information  and  capital, 
who  are  in  a  better  position  than  the  producer  to 
anticipate  the  future  course  of  the  market.  His 
idea  was  that  some  form  of  International  Freights 
Tribunal  should  be  constituted,  analogous  to  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  of  the  United 
States,  to  which  questions  in  dispute  between 
producer  and  carrying  agency  or  dealer  might  be 
referred.  In  other  words,  he  contemplated  inter- 
national regulation  of  freights  for  food  products. 
He  also  proposed  that  the  Union  should  concern 
itself  with  measures  for  the  protection  of  the 
common  interests  of  agriculturists  and  the  im- 
provement of  their  conditions,  and,  therefore, 
with  such  questions  as  the  prevention  of  plant 
diseases,  agricultural  co-operation,  insurance,  and 
credit. 

It  is  very  instructive  to  read  the  opinion  of  the 
British  administrative  officials  on  this  proposal. 
The  Board  of  Agriculture,  when  consulted  by  the 
Foreign  Office,  is  not  opposed  to  our  sending  repre- 
sentatives to  the  diplomatic  Conference  to  con- 
sider the  creation  of  an  International  Institute  of 
Agriculture,  but  it  points  out  that  British  mem- 
bers of  such  an  Institute,  if  appointed  by  Govern- 
ment, "could  not  well  take  any  active  part"  in, 
e.  g.,  "examination  and  criticism  of  the  legislative 
and  administrative  proposals  of  the  Government 
by  which  they  were  appointed,"  nor  "assist  in  the 
organization  of  measures  of  defence,  not  provided 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  253 

by  law,  against  what  might  be  considered  by  the 
Bureau  to  be  an  excessive  and  arbitrary  use  of  the 
rights  and  powers  possessed  by  railway  trusts  and 
corners."  This  curious  statement  seems  to  ignore 
the  fact  that,  of  course,  the  members  appointed 
by  the  British  Government  to  represent  that  Gov- 
ernment in  an  organ  of  International  Government 
would,  and  could,  take  an  active  part  in  the 
examination  and  criticism  of  legislative  proposals, 
etc.,  provided  that  they  represented  the  views  of 
the  British  Government  in  that  organ  in  accor- 
dance with  their  instructions.  This  is  a  daily 
occurrence  in  all  organs  of  International  Govern- 
ment, from  the  ordinary  Diplomatic  Conference 
to  the  Congress  of  the  Postal  Union.  Then  the 
Board  of  Agriculture  went  on  to  point  out  the 
respects  in  which  "the  position  and  interests  of 
this  country  differ  materially  from  those  of  other 
Powers."  They  are:  (i)  Exceptional  position  of 
the  United  Kingdom  as  a  market  for  foreign  agri- 
cultural produce;  (2)  the  increasing  extent  to 
which  our  requirements  are  satisfied  by  our  Col- 
onies; (3)  advantages  derived  by  our  insular  posi- 
tion in  regard  to  such  matters  as  the  prevention 
of  the  introduction  of  disease  and  examination  of 
imported  food  products.  In  all  this,  it  will  be 
observed,  there  is  no  recognition  of  those  "agri- 
cultural international  interests"  of  which  Mr. 
Lubin  was  thinking.  For  instance,  the  "excep- 
tional position  of  the  United  Kingdom  as  a  market 
for  foreign  agricultural  produce"  is  precisely  what 
makes  the  international  improvement  of  agricul- 


254  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

ture  and  the  international  protection  of  agricul- 
turists of  immense  importance  to  an  enormous 
number  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
This  exceptional  position,  instead  of  making  us 
hesitate  to  take  international  action,  as  the  Board 
implied,  ought  to  have  made  us  all  the  more  ready 
to  do  so.  The  Board,  which  would  have  identified 
the  interests  of  a  small  number  of  British  ship- 
owners in  high  freights,  or  of  a  small  number  of 
British  farmers  in  high  prices,  with  "national 
interests,"  entirely  failed  to  identify  the  inter- 
ests of  the  millions  of  British  consumers  in 
low  freights  and  low  prices  with  "national  in- 


terests." 


The  British  Government  appointed  their  dele- 
gates to  the  Conference,  and  their  instructions 
incorporated  all  the  recommendations  of  the 
Board,  with  the  additional  statement  that  "H.M.'s 
Government  cannot  be  parties  to  any  action  which 
would  be  likely  to  impair  the  favorable  position 
of  British  agriculturists."  The  Conference  assem- 
bled in  Rome,  and  Mr.  Lubin's  proposals  were 
submitted  to  it  with  the  significant  exception  of 
the  one  which  dealt  with  freights.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Organizing  Committee  of  the  Italian 
Government  presented  a  report  in  which  the 
existing  conditions  which  could  be  ameliorated 
by  International  Regulation  are  so  fully  and 
yet  succinctly  indicated  that  they  are  worth 
quoting : — 

(i)  Protection  of  live  stock  and  cultivated 
plants  from  contagion  and  epidemics. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 255 

(2)  Agricultural  insurance.     By  extending  the 
area  of  insurance,  premiums  would  be  greatly  re- 
duced, e.  g.,  drought  in  Argentine  would  not  be 
likely  to  occur  at  the  same  time  as   in  Russia. 
The  whole  crops  of  a  country  could  only  be  insured 
if  insurance  were  a   State  enterprise,   and   State 
enterprises  were  federated. 

(3)  Forestry.     Protection  of  forests  is  only  pos- 
sible in  many  cases  if  it  is  international. 

(4)  Adulteration  of  agricultural  products.     In- 
ternational study  of  this  subject  and  an  interna- 
tional code  are  necessary. 

(5)  Immigration    and    emigration,    and    Labor 
Exchange. 

(6)  International  organ  to  diffuse  knowledge  of 
production  and  a  Central  Institute  of  Meteorology 
are  necessary. 

(7)  Co-operation. 

(8)  International    organization    against    rings, 
monopolies,  and  speculative  dealings  is  desirable. 

The  Conference  arrived  at  an  agreement,*  a 
Convention  was  signed,  and  the  International 
Institute  of  Agriculture  came  into  existence  with 


*  There  was  only  one  important  difference  of  opinion.  The  proposal 
of  the  Italian  Government  was  that  the  Institute  should  be  a  Union  of 
States,  and  that  it  should  be  formed  by  delegates  of  the  Governments 
of  States.  Austria-Hungary,  supported  by  Germany,  proposed  that  the 
Institute  should  be  formed  by  delegates  elected  by  Agricultural  Asso- 
ciations, and  that  delegates  of  Governments  should  be  allowed  to  attend 
the  sittings,  but  should  have  no  power  to  vote.  The  Italian  proposal 
was  accepted,  and  the  Austrian  rejected, 


256  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

a  most  elaborate  constitution  *  and  imposing 
buildings  in  Rome.  But  the  diplomatists  and 
their  Governments  confined  the  field  of  its  opera- 
tions to  very  narrow  limits.  Article  9  of  the 
Convention  of  1905  limits  its  functions  "within 
an  international  sphere"  to  the  collection,  study, 
and  publication  of  statistical,  technical,  and  eco- 
nomic information  about  agriculture,  prices,  wages, 
diseases,  co-operation,  insurance  and  credit,  and 
to  the  power  to  "submit  to  the  approval  of  the 
Governments,  if  there  is  occasion  for  it,  measures 
for  the  protection  of  the  common  interests  of 
farmers  and  for  improvement  of  their  conditions." 
The  main  work  has,  in  fact,  been  the  collection 
and  diffusion  of  agricultural  statistics  and  infor- 


*  The  constitution  is  extraordinarily  elaborate.     Its  organs  consist  of: — 

(1)  The  General  Assembly  of  the  delegates  of  States,  which  meets 

once  a  year. 

(2)  The  Permanent  Committee  consists  of  special  delegates  of  the 

States  resident  in  Rome,  and  really  carries  on  the  work  of  the 
Institute,  acting  as  an  Executive  Committee  of  the  General 
Assembly.  It  is  subdivided  into  four  Permanent  Commissions. 

(3)  The  Special  Committee,  composed  of  the  President  and  Vice- 

President  of  the  Permanent  Committee  and  the  Presidents  of 
the  four  Commissions. 

(4)  Commissions  nominated   by  the  General   Assembly.     In   these 

Commissions  each  nation  has  one  vote. 

(5)  Permanent  Commissions  appointed  by  the  Special  Committee. 

(6)  Special  Commissions. 

(7)  Four  Bureaus,  which  deal  with  the  administration  of  the  In- 

stitute. 

The  signatory  States,  which  now  number  fifty-five,  are  divided  into  five 
groups;  the  contribution  to  the  expenses  of  the  Institute  and  the  voting 
powers  in  the  General  Assembly  and  Permanent  Committee  vary  accord- 
Ing  to  the  group  to  which  the  State  belongs.  States  have  the  right  to 
choose  the  group  to  which  they  will  belong. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  257 

mation.  This  is  carried  out  through  the  publica- 
tion of  three  monthly  Bulletins,  and  a  Year  Book, 
viz. :  The  Bulletin  of  Agricultural  and  Commercial 
Statistics,  the  Monthly  Bulletin  of  Economic  and 
Social  Intelligence,  the  Monthly  Bulletin  of  Agri- 
cultural Intelligence  and  Plant  Diseases,  and  the 
International  Year  Book  of  Agricultural  Statistics. 
Much  of  this  information  is  potentially  of  great 
value,  and  could  only  be  obtained  and  published 
rapidly  through  the  kind  of  International  Admin- 
istration set  up  by  the  Institute.  Thus,  the  first 
Bulletin  every  month  issues  broadcast  over  the 
world  information  relating  to  "the  agricultural 
production  of  the  entire  world,  the  area  sown, 
the  state  of  crops,  the  forecasts  and  the  harvests 
actually  yielded,  the  import  and  export  trade  in 
the  principal  agricultural  products,  their  price,  and 
the  amount  of  visible  stocks."  The  regular  and 
rapid  publication  of  such  accurate  statistics  obvi- 
ously ought  to  have  important  effects  upon  the 
world's  markets  for  food  products,  and  the  claim 
has  been  made,  though  it  is  not  an  easy  one  either 
to  prove  or  to  disprove,  that  the  Institute,  by  its 
Monthly  Bulletin,  has  already  contributed  to  the 
checking  of  speculation  in  and  the  cornering  of 
markets  of  food  products.*  An  indirect  effect  of 
some  importance  is  that  these  publications  have 
led  to  improvement  and  greater  uniformity  in  the 


*The  monthly  circulation  of  these  Bulletins  is,  I  believe,  about  6,000 
copies.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  no  other  body  could  produce  them, 
if  only  because  the  Governments  of  the  whole  world  are  under  obliga- 
tion to  supply  their  statistics  to  the  Institute,  and  to  the  Institute  alone. 


258  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

official  agricultural  statistics  of  some  countries, 
e.  g.,  Russia. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  broader  problems  and 
the  wider  interests  of  the  peoples  of  nearly  all 
countries  which  were  envisaged  in  Mr.  Lubin's 
scheme  have  not  been  entrusted  to  the  Inter- 
national Government  of  the  Institute.  The  Gen- 
eral Assembly  and  the  Permanent  Committee  are 
occupied  almost  exclusively  with  questions  of 
statistics  and  plant  diseases.  The  causes  of  this 
narrowing  of  function  have  been  the  diplomatic 
theory  of  the  independence  of  national  Govern- 
ment, a  jealousy  of  anything  which  appears  to 
limit  that  independence,  and  an  identification  of 
the  interests  of  certain  narrow  groups,  such  as 
shipowners,  with  national  interests.  Yet  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  the  interests  of  the  producers 
and  consumers  of  agricultural  products  in  efficient 
production  and  in  efficient  and  cheap  distribution 
are  less  national  interests  than  the  interests  of 
shipowners  in  high  freights.  The  real  interests  of 
nations  would  seem  to  lie  in  the  international  or- 
ganization of  efficient  agriculture  over  as  wide  a 
surface  of  the  earth  as  possible,  and  in  an  inter- 
national organization  "against  rings,  monopolies, 
and  speculative  dealings."  So  that  once  again  we 
find  that  the  true  national  interests  are  inter- 
national, and  can  only  be  adequately  served  by 
some  form  of  International  Government. 

It  should,  however,  be  observed  that  the  Amer- 
ican Government  shares  the  international  attitude 
and  hopes  of  its  citizen  and  delegate,  Mr.  Lubin, 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 259 

and  does  not  despair  of  widening  the  sphere  of  the 
Institute.  In  1914  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  passed  a  resolution  instructing 
the  United  States'  delegate  to  the  Institute  to 
present  the  following  resolution  to  the  Permanent 
Committee  of  the  Institute  in  order  that  it  might 
be  submitted  to  the  General  Assembly  which  was 
to  meet  in  1917: 

"  L'Assemblee  Generale  charge  1'Institut  Inter- 
national d'Agriculture  d'inviter  les  Gouverne- 
ments  adherents  a  prendre  part  a  une  Conference 
Internationale  tendant  a  donner  plus  de  stabilite 
aux  prix  des  produits  agricoles  du  monde  entier. 

"Cette  Conference  sera  composee  de  Delegues 
nommes  par  les  Gouvernements  adherents  a 
1'Institut,  et  devra  considerer  1'opportunite  de 
formuler  une  Convention  etablissant  une  Com- 
mission Commerciale  Internationale  de  la  marine 
marchande  et  des  frets  maritimes,  ayant  des 
pouvoirs  consultatifs  et  deliberatifs,  et  pouvant 
egalement  de  sa  prop  re  initiative  formuler  des 


avis." 


Before  finally  leaving  the  subject  of  the  Institute 
of  Agriculture,  a  small  point  deserves  recording, 
in  which  the  ardent  internationalist  may  find  some 
consolation.  When  the  war  broke  out  the  official 
delegates  of  the  belligerent  States  continued  with 
the  approval  of  their  Governments  to  meet  in  and 
carry  on  the  work  of  the  Permanent  Committee. 
Thus,  for  the  first  time,  civilized  States  at  war 
with  one  another  maintained  diplomatic  relations 
through  their  official  representatives  on  an  inter- 


260  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

national  organ.  It  is  a  trifling  point,  but  it  at 
least  shows  that  international  relations  are  now 
so  much  a  part  of  life  that  even  war  cannot  en- 
tirely abolish  them. 

D. — Morals  and  Crime 

The  earliest  function  of  the  State  was  historically 
the  control  of  morals  and  the  prevention  of  crime, 
and  a  large  part  of  its  administrative  activities  are 
in  most  civilized  countries  still  occupied  with  these 
functions.  Before  the  nineteenth  century,  when 
international  intercourse  remained  very  limited, 
crime,  with  the  exception  of  piracy,  did  not  over- 
step national  frontiers,  and  any  competent  Na- 
tional Administration  would  have  been  competent 
to  deal  with  its  own  criminals.  But  national  life 
has,  as  we  have  already  seen,  broken  down  in  so 
many  directions  in  the  last  century  that  no 
National  Administration,  however  competent, 
could  now  cope  even  with  its  own  criminals — to 
say  nothing  of  international  criminals — if  it  main- 
tained its  independence  of  and  isolation  from 
other  Administrations.  I  propose  to  indicate 
only  in  their  briefest  outlines  the  directions  in 
which  the  new  conditions  have  shown  that  inter- 
nationalism of  administration  is  necessary. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  national  frontier 
really  meant  a  great  deal  to  national  life.  To 
reach  it  and  cross  it  was  a  slow  and  often  difficult 
operation.  If  a  crime  were  committed  in  France 
the  French  police  had  in  nearly  all  cases  only  to 
think  of  arresting  the  criminals  in  France.  But 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  261 

today  it  is  probably  easier  to  get  out  of  France 
than  it  was  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  get  out  of 
Paris.  In  these  circumstances  no  National  Ad- 
ministration can  deal  adequately  with  its  national 
crime  unless  it  can  pursue  and  arrest  its  national 
criminals  who  have  left  its  jurisdiction.  The 
enormous  number  of  extradition  treaties  con- 
cluded in  the  last  sixty  years  are  the  result  of 
these  new  conditions;  strictly  speaking,  they  inter- 
nationalize the  law  of  extradition  in  the  different 
countries  of  the  world — and,  therefore,  belong  to  the 
next  chapter — but  the  object  of  this  internationali- 
zation of  law  is  to  internationalize  administration 
where  it  is  concerned  with  the  arrest  of  criminals. 
But  modern  society  has  also  seen  an  immense 
growth  in  what  may  correctly  be  called  inter- 
national crime,  and  with  international  crime  inde- 
pendent national  administration  is  quite  unable  to 
cope.  I  propose  to  give  two  examples.  The  first 
is  the  slave  trade.  At  the  end  of  the  Napoleonic 
Wars  one  of  those  curious  waves  of  moral  con- 
viction which  occasionally  sweep  over  Anglo- 
Saxon  communities  descended  upon  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  United  Kingdom.  The  whole  country 
gave  itself  up  to  the  Anti-Slavery  agitation,  and 
the  British  people,  as  opposed  to  their  Ministers, 
insisted  that  the  peace  to  be  made  at  Vienna 
should  have  as  its  chief  object,  so  far  as  they  were 
concerned,  the  abolition  of  slavery  from  every 
corner  of  the  world  rather  than  the  settlement  of 
Europe  or  the  aggrandizement  of  the  British  Em- 
pire. But  it  was  realized  at  once  that  slavery  and 


262 


the  slave  trade  are  international  crimes,  which 
cannot  possibly  be  put  down  by  isolated  national 
action,  and  require  international  action  and  ad- 
ministration. The  famous  clause  inserted  in  the 
Treaty  of  Vienna  recognizes  the  necessity  of  col- 
lective action.  But  it  was  many  years  before 
really  effective  international  action  was  taken. 
At  the  Conference  of  Brussels  in  1889-1890  an 
international  Convention  was  signed  by  eighteen 
States  which  establishes  an  elaborate  International 
Administration  for  the  suppression  of  slavery  in 
Africa.  The  enforcement  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Convention  is  watched  over  by  an  international 
organ,  Le  Bureau  international  maritime  de  Zan- 
zibar, upon  which,  according  to  Article  74,  each 
Signatory  Power  has  the  right  to  be  represented, 
and  which  meets  monthly.*  The  second  example 
is  even  more  instructive  from  the  point  of  view  of 
internationalism.  The  White  Slave  Traffic  is  a 
trade  which  is  organized  internationally.  The 
dealers  in  and  exporters  of  women  for  the  purposes 
of  prostitution  are  in  the  different  countries  of  the 
world  in  close  touch  with  one  another.  The  con- 
sequence is  that  even  where  legislation  exists  for 
putting  down  this  traffic,  the  national  administra- 

*  Closely  connected  with  the  suppression  of  slavery  in  Africa  has  been 
the  question  of  the  regulation  of  the  sale  of  liquor  and  arms  in  that  con- 
tinent. In  both  cases  international  has  had  to  take  the  place  of  national 
administration.  The  sale  of  liquor  was  regulated  by  Articles  90-95  of  the 
Brussels  Convention.  The  traffic  in  arms  was  finally  subjected  to  inter- 
national administration  by  a  Convention  signed  by  fourteen  States  at  the 
Conference  chargee  de  reviser  le  Regime  des  Armes  en  Afrique,  Brussels, 
1908  and  1909.  This  Convention  established  International  Bureaus  at 
Aden  and  on  the  West  Coast. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  263 

tion  is  quite  unable  by  isolated  action  to  suppress 
it.  If  an  international  gang  in,  say,  Paris  organ- 
izes the  trade  in  Berlin,  London,  and  Buenos 
Ayres,  it  is  impossible  for  either  the  English,  Ger- 
man, Argentine,  or  French  police  to  secure  the 
conviction  of  the  principals  without  international 
action  of  some  sort.  Again,  the  offense  itself  is 
often  international  in  the  sense  that  it  is  con- 
stituted an  offense  by  actions  performed  in  more 
than  one  country.  The  offense  is  frequently  one 
of  procuring  for  a  certain  purpose,  but  while  the 
procuring  takes  place  in  one  country,  the  purpose 
can  only  be  proved  by  what  has  subsequently  hap- 
pened to  the  victims  of  the  procurers  in  another 
country.  The  necessity  for  some  internationali- 
zation of  administration  was  insisted  upon  first  by 
International  Associations  of  private  individuals 
interested  in  the  subject.  This  led  to  the  holding 
of  a  diplomatic  conference  by  fifteen  States  in 
1902,  and  a  further  conference  in  1910.  The  re- 
sult has  been  an  international  agreement  which 
has  introduced  some  uniformity  into  the  criminal 
laws  of  the  different  nations  and  uniformity  and 
co-operation  into  the  administration  of  those  laws. 
In  this  connection  a  curious  incident  deserves 
mention,  for  it  shows  how  modern  life  tends  to 
run  along  international  lines.  There  are  a  con- 
siderable number  of  International  Associations  * 

*  E.  g.,  Association  Internationale  pour  la  repression  de  la  Traite  des 
Blanches,  which  is  composed  of  National  Committees  belonging  to  sixteen 
countries,  Federation  Abolitioniste  Internationale,  Union  Internationale  des 
Amies  de  la  Jeune  Fille,  Association  Catholique  des  CEuvres  de  Protection 
de  la  Jeune  Fille,  etc. 


264  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

which  regularly  hold  International  Congresses  on 
the  subject  of  the  White  Slave  Traffic,  and  they 
have  been  instrumental  in  obtaining  concerted 
Government  action.  Then  between  1902  and 
1910  came  the  diplomatic  conferences  and  con- 
ventions, and  also  at  intervals  conferences  of  the 
police  of  different  countries.  Apparently  the  traf- 
fickers themselves  became  nervous  at  all  this 
international  activity,  and  they  decided  to  hold 
an  international  congress  to  discuss  what  steps 
should  be  taken  to  counteract  the  preventive 
measures  of  the  Associations  and  Administrations. 
Accordingly  a  secret  international  meeting  was 
fixed  for  the  night  of  November  9,  1913,  in  a  night 
cafe  in  Warsaw  in  order  to  arrive  at  an  inter- 
national agreement  as  to  the  future  conduct  of 
the  trade.  The  meeting  was  attended  by  eighty- 
nine  representatives  from  all  the  different  coun- 
tries, and  practically  all  the  chief  organizers  of  the 
trade  were  present.  Unfortunately  for  these  inter- 
nationalists, the  police  got  to  hear  of  the  meeting, 
surrounded  the  cafe,  and  arrested  the  whole  con- 
gress. One  of  the  men  captured,  called  Silber- 
mann,  had  been  "wanted"  for  a  long  time,  and 
had  been,  in  the  opinion  of  the  police,  one  of  the 
leading  organizers  of  the  traffic.  Many  of  the 
traffickers  had,  however,  to  be  released,  as  there 
was  no  evidence  on  which  a  definite  charge  could 
be  preferred  against  them.* 

It  would  be  possible  to  give  other  examples  in 

*  The   facts    are    reported   in   La    Fie   Internationale,   Vol.    IV,    1913, 
No.  5,  p._432- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  265 

which  national  administration  is  inadequate  under 
modern  conditions  for  dealing  with  crime.*  But 
enough  has  already  been  said,  I  think,  to  show 
that  in  the  region  of  crime  and  criminal  law  and 
administration  international  interests  are  no  less 
real,  and  international  administration  for  their 
protection  is  no  less  necessary  and  feasible,  than 
we  have  already  found  them  to  be  in  Communica- 
tions, Industry  and  Commerce,  and  Public  Health. 

*  Some  of  these  examples  have  already  been  touched  on  above — e.  g., 
the  protection  of  submarine  cables  is,  from  one  point  of  view,  a  question 
of  international  police.  The  repression  of  the  circulation  of  indecent  litera- 
ture has  been  subjected  to  international  regulation  by  a  Convention  of 
1910.  The  Commission  penitentiaire  internationale  also  deserves  mention. 
The  Commission  consists  of  Government  delegates,  and  its  objects  and 
functions  are  the  study  of  general  measures  for  the  prevention  and  repres- 
sion of  crime.  It  meets  once  every  two  years,  and  it  arranges  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Congres  penitentiaires  internationales,  which  meet  every  five 
years.  The  Commission  has  a  Bureau  at  Berne,  and  publishes  a  Bulletin. 


19 


CHAPTER  IV 

COSMOPOLITAN    LAW-MAKING 

IF  administration  is  the  flower  and  fruit  of  the 
independent  sovereign  State,  legislation  may 
be  compared  to  the  vital  principle  which 
causes  the  flower  to  blossom  and  the  fruit  to  grow. 
In  a  report  of  one  of  the  Committees  at  a  Pan- 
American  Conference  sovereignty  is  defined  as 
consisting  "explicitly  in  the  right  it  (the  State) 
always  preserves  of  regulating  by  its  laws  such 
judicial  acts  as  are  consummated  within  its  ter- 
ritory, and  of  trying  these  by  its  tribunals." 
Legislation  is  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  independ- 
ent, sovereign  State,  and,  therefore,  of  nationalism 
as  opposed  to  internationalism.  But  we  should 
not  forget  that  the  State  is  a  form  of  human  or- 
ganization superimposed  upon  a  complex  material 
world  of  men  and  women,  all  with  thoughts  and 
feelings,  desires,  wants,  and  businesses  of  their 
own.  If  it  does  not  fit  into  that  material  world, 
or  if  it  does  not  reflect  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  men  and  women,  or  if  its  form  is  incompatible 
with  their  aims  and  desires  and  modes  of  life, 
then  one  of  two  things  must  happen:  either  the 
form  of  organization  must  modify  itself  to  suit  its 
environment,  or  the  environment — in  this  case, 

266 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  267 

human  society — must  modify  itself  in  order  to 
conform  with  the  form  of  its  own  organization. 

The  organization  of  human  beings  to-day  in  in- 
dependent, sovereign  States  with  complete  inde- 
pendence of  legislation  has,  as  I  shall  show  in  this 
chapter,  already  proved  to  be  incompatible  with 
modern  society — by  which  I  mean  the  sum  of  the 
every-day  lives  of  the  millions  who  follow  their 
noses  and  their  businesses  and  their  desires  through 
the  365  days  of  the  year  without  ever  thinking  of 
such  abstractions  as  sovereignty  or  the  TO  ri  rjv 
elva  of  a  State.  This  incompatibility  shows  itself 
principally  in  the  inconveniences  and  impediments 
to  which  differences  of  laws  in  the  different  coun- 
tries subject  the  development  of  international  in- 
tercourse and  social  progress.  This  state  of  things 
has  been  met  by  that  universal  human  expedient 
— compromise.  We  have  in  part  capitulated  to 
the  tyranny  of  our  national  organizations,  fore- 
going many  wants  in  our  every-day  life,  suffering 
innumerable  inconveniences,  putting  off  all  kinds 
of  repairs  and  improvements  which  the  building 
of  society  urgently  needs  in  order  to  preserve 
independence  of  national  legislation;  on  the  other 
hand,  we  have  in  several  directions  abandoned 
complete  independence,  and  through  new  interna- 
tional organizations  and  international  agreements 
instituted  a  system  of  unification  of  divergent  na- 
tional laws,  a  process  of  cosmopolitan  law-making. 

I  propose  in  this  chapter  to  consider  in  detail  a 
few  of  these  examples  of  cosmopolitan  legislation, 
the  importance  of  which  seems  to  have  escaped 


268  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  attention  of  modern  writers  on  Government, 
Political  Science,  and  the  relations  of  States.  Be- 
fore doing  so,  however,  a  few  general  remarks  are 
necessaiy.  This  process  of  unifying  the  law  over 
a  wide  stretch  of  territory  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  a  number  of  independent  States  is  a  phenomenon 
which  has  only  appeared  in  very  recent  times.  It 
was  practically  unheard  of  before  1880.  It  is  ob- 
viously a  most  important  form  of  International 
Government,  for  it  is  international  legislation  in  a 
very  early  stage.  A  study  of  those  instances  in 
which  it  has  been  attempted  should  throw  much 
light  upon  the  true  relations  of  national  interests 
to  one  another  and  to  International  Government. 
Finally,  all  through  the  study  of  this  question  I 
would  urge  the  necessity  of  keeping  these  funda- 
mental facts  clearly  before  one's  mind — namely, 
that  all  these  tentative  advances  towards  Inter- 
national Government  are  due  to  the  natural  im- 
pulses of  the  kind  of  life  which  men  and  women 
desire  to  live  to-day.  That  kind  of  life  is  incom- 
patible with  the  isolated  independent  State.  That 
incompatibility  will  continue,  and  future  genera- 
tions will  have  to  choose  between  two  courses: 
either  they  will  have  to  modify  their  conception 
of  the  national  State  in  order  to  develop  the  kind 
of  existence  which  they  began  to  desire  and  to 
attain  in  the  nineteenth  century,  or  they  will  have 
to  return  to  an  earlier,  poorer,  more  uncomfortable 
and — as  I  venture  to  think — less  civilized  kind  of 
life  in  order  to  retain  their  conception  of  the  inde- 
pendent national  State. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  269 

A. — International  Maritime  Legislation 

The  first  example  of  cosmopolitan  legislation  with 
which  I  propose  to  deal  is  the  latest  in  point  of 
time,  but  shows  most  clearly  the  different  bear- 
ings of  the  international  problem.  The  develop- 
ment of  communications,  as  we  have  continually 
had  to  point  out,  made  possible  the  development 
of  international  trade,  which  has  revolutionized 
international  relations  generally.  But  the  enor- 
mous system  of  industry  and  commerce  of  the 
modern  world,  consisting  in  the  interchange  of 
commodities,  would  have  been  quite  impossible 
unless  men  had  been  able  spontaneously  to  adapt 
the  old  and  invent  a  new  machinery  of  exchange 
and  credit.  In  every  civilized  country  the  nine- 
teenth century  saw  the  gradual  growth  of  an  en- 
tirely new  and  vast  body  of  commercial  law  and 
custom,  and  the  growth  and  modification  of  this 
body  of  law  and  custom,  which  forms  the  machin- 
ery of  both  national  and  international  credit  and 
exchange,  is  still  proceeding.  In  the  working  of 
this  machinery  certainty  and  uniformity  are  for 
commerce  of  the  very  first  importance.  As  proof 
of  this  assertion  it  is  only  necessary  to  point  out 
that  if  the  laws  and  customs  governing,  say,  Bills 
of  Exchange  were  not  firmly  established  with  a 
considerable  degree  of  uniformity  in  the  different 
countries,  the  volume  of  the  world's  trade  would 
shrink  to  very  modest  dimensions.  The  whole 
of  that  part  of  the  machinery  of  international  ex- 
change which  depends  upon  custom  also  exhibits 


270  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

a  high  degree  of  uniformity:  the  banker,  the  mer- 
chant, the  shipper,  the  insurer  are  all  continually 
trying  to  ignore  or  abolish,  so  far  as  their  business 
is  concerned,  the  national  frontiers  which  separate 
their  offices.  But  the  independence  and  isolation 
of  States  have  had  the  opposite  effect  upon  that 
part  of  the  machinery  which  depends  upon  com- 
mercial law.  Commercial  Law  and  laws  which 
intimately  affect  industry  and  commerce  vary 
enormously  from  country  to  country,  and  this  not 
only  impedes  the  growth  of  international  trade  by 
causing  uncertainty,  loss,  and  inconvenience,  but 
it  also  impedes  the  development  of  a  uniform 
machinery  of  exchange  upon  which  the  further 
evolution  of  international  trade  must  depend. 

To  commercial  men  and  commercial  lawyers  the 
inconveniences  caused  by  this  lack  of  uniformity 
became  apparent  very  many  years  ago,  and  early 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century  an  attempt 
was  made  to  remedy  them.  That  attempt  failed, 
and  it  is  instructive  to  observe  how  it  differed 
from  the  later  attempt  of  the  International  Mari- 
time Committee,  which  has  already  achieved  a 
considerable  amount  of  success.  The  persons 
who  first  took  up  the  subject  were  jurists,  and, 
conceiving  that  what  was  wanted  was  a  uniform 
maritime  law  for  the  whole  world,  they  proceeded 
to  work  out  a  complete  commercial  maritime  code, 
and  to  present  it  for  acceptance  to  all  the  nations 
of  the  world.*  But  they  did  not  take  the  pre- 

*  Fide  an  article  on  "Le  Droit  de  la  Mer,"  in  La  Vie  Internationale, 
Vol.  Ill,  1913,  No.  6. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  271 

caution  to  consult  the  persons  most  interested, 
the  traders,  shipowners,  insurers,  etc.,  and  their 
code  satisfied  nobody.  But  the  whole  subject 
continued  to  demand  attention,  and  in  1898  the 
International  Maritime  Committee  came  into 
existence. 

The  Maritime  Committee  is  a  remarkable  ex- 
ample of  a  voluntary  international  association 
whose  efforts  have  resulted  in  international  legis- 
lation and  government.  The  objects  are  defined 
in  its  statutes  as: 

(a)  To   further,    by   conferences,    publications, 

and  divers  works,  the  unification  of  Mari- 
time Law. 

(b)  To  encourage  the  creation  of  national  asso- 

ciations for  the  unification  of  Maritime 
Law. 

(c)  To    maintain    between    these    associations 

tegular  communication  and  united  action. 

The  Committee  itself  is  composed  of  delegates  of 
national  associations,  and  there  are  now  seventeen 
national  associations  in  existence,  including  all  the 
chief  maritime  and  commercial  countries.  The 
Committee  entered  upon  its  task  with  extreme 
caution.  Its  procedure  is  not  to  attempt  to  deal 
with  Maritime  Law  as  a  whole,  but  to  take  it 
piecemeal.  It  first  decides  what  part  of  the 
Maritime  Law  it  proposes  to  study — for  instance, 
Collisions  or  Salvage  or  Freight.  It  then  circu- 
lates to  the  National  Associations  a  detailed  ques- 
tionnaire. The  replies  are  tabulated,  and  show 


272  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

at  a  glance  the  variations  in  the  details  and  the 
principles  of  the  existing  systems  of  national  laws. 
An  attempt  is  then  made  to  reconcile  the  differ- 
ences and  to  find  some  principle  which  will  be 
acceptable  to  the  different  associations.  This  is 
submitted  to  and  discussed  at  a  conference.  If 
some  agreement  is  arrived  at  a  draft  convention  is 
prepared  and  discussed  at  a  further  conference  or 
conferences.  If  the  conferences  result  in  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  draft  convention,  the  Committee 
then  works  to  get  it  submitted  to  and  accepted 
by  a  diplomatic  conference  and  embodied  in  the 
law  of  the  States  of  the  world. 

The  Committee  had  been  in  existence  only 
twelve  years  when  it  had  its  first  complete  suc- 
cess, the  unification  of  an  important  part  of  the 
maritime  law  of  the  world.  It  began  its  opera- 
tions by  taking  up  the  study  of  four  departments 
of  that  law:  (i)  The  law  of  Maritime  Salvage,  (2) 
the  law  of  Collisions  at  Sea,  (3)  the  law  as  to  Mari- 
time Mortgages  and  Privileged  Liens,  and  (4)  the 
law  as  to  Limitation  of  Shipowners'  Liability.  In 
all  these  cases  agreement  between  the  National 
Associations  was  found  possible,  and  draft  con- 
ventions were  submitted  to,  discussed  at,  and 
finally  passed  by  the  annual  conferences.  In  1905 
the  Belgian  Government  proposed  to  call  a  diplo- 
matic conference  to  consider  these  projects:  at 
first  the  British  Government  refused  to  take  part, 
but  eventually  withdrew  its  refusal,  and  the  con- 
ference met  in  October  of  that  year,  and  again  in 
1909  and  1910.  The  result  was  that  two  conven- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  273 

tions  unifying  the  law  of  Salvage  and  Collisions 
were  srgned  by  nearly  all  the  chief  maritime 
countries  of  the  world,  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Committee  could  justly  claim  with  regard  to  them 
in  1913  that  "more  than  three-quarters  of  the 
tonnage  of  the  world  is  now  regulated  by  uniform 
maritime  law  elaborated  by  the  International 
Maritime  Committee."  The  diplomatic  confer- 
ences also  exarhined  the  draft  conventions  on 
Maritime  Mortgages  and  the  Liability  of  Owners 
and  referred  them  to  a  sub-committee  for  further 
study.  Since  1910  the  most  important  questions 
dealt  with  by  the  Maritime  Committee  have  been 
an  international  agreement  on  Safety  at  Sea  and 
a  draft  convention  on  the  law  of  Freight. 

Such  is  the  bare  history  of  this  attempt  at  Inter- 
national Legislation:  there  are  several  points 
which  merit  attention.  In  the  first  place,  the 
composition  of  the  National  Associations  and  of 
the  conferences  is  of  great  importance,  because 
success  in  unifying  the  law  depends  entirely  upon 
the  possibility  of  their  arriving  at  agreement. 
The  Associations  are  representative  in  the  highest 
degree  of  legal  opinion,  and  those  groups  in  each 
country  most  affected  by  Maritime  Law.  The 
conferences  are  equally  representative,  and  in  their 
proceedings,  therefore,  the  relation  between  na- 
tional interests  and  International  Government 
and  agreement  becomes  peculiarly  manifest.  How 
representative  of  national  interests — in  the  widest 
and  narrowest  senses  in  which  the  words  can  be 
used,  even  by  the  most  ardent  Nationalist — these 


274  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

conferences  are  can  best  be  shown  by  considering 
who  the  British  delegates  to  the  Copenhagen  Con- 
ference of  the  Maritime  Committee  were  in  1913. 
There  were  first  two  eminent  K.C.'s,  experts  in 
maritime  and  commercial  law,  Sir  Reginald  Acland 
and  Mr.  L.  Batten.  Then  there  was  the  President 
of  Lloyd's,  Sir  E.  Beauchamp,  and  the  President  of 
the  Chamber  of  Shipping  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
Mr.  C.  W.  Gordon.  The  London  Chamber  of 
Commerce  was  represented  by  Sir  A.  K.  Rollit; 
the  Liverpool  Steamship  Owners'  Association  by 
Sir  Norman  Hill;  and  the  United  Kingdom  Mutual 
Steamship  Assurance  Association  by  Sir  Walter 
Runciman,  Mr.  A.  Serena,  Mr.  H.  R.  Miller,  and 
Mr.  J.  F.  Wilson;  the  Glasgow  Ship  Owners'  As- 
sociation by  Mr.  J.  B.  Murray;  the  London  Steam- 
ship Owners'  Mutual  Insurance  Association  by  Mr. 
K.  L.  Bilbrough;  and  the  North  of  England  Steam- 
ship Owners'  Association  by  Mr.  Temperley  and 
Mr.  W.  J.  Noble.  Anyone  who  knows  anything 
of  the  shipping  world  will  probably  agree  that  it 
would  hardly  be  possible  to  get  together  a  body 
of  men  more  representative  of  British  maritime 
interests,  and  that  these  gentlemen  were  not  likely 
to  sacrifice  those  interests  to  a  sentimental  and 
cranky  internationalism. 

The  delegates  of  the  other  National  Associations 
are  in  the  same  way  the  leading  men  in  the  ship- 
ping and  commercial  worlds  of  the  different  coun- 
tries. Now,  these  national  groups  are  trade  rivals 
and  competitors,  so  that  on  the  nationalist  hypoth- 
esis they  represent  the  most  vital  and  the  most 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  275 

conflicting  of  all  national  interests.  One  may 
therefore  reasonably  argue  that  if  International 
Government  and  agreement  can  flourish  in  such 
soil,  it  can  flourish  anywhere.  Secondly,  they  are 
dealing  with  national  laws,  customs,  and  interests 
to  which  men  ordinarily  cling  most  tenaciously, 
because  they  form  part  of  the  business  environ- 
ment, "the  way  we  do  our  business  in  this  coun- 
try," in  which  they  have  grown  up  and  made  their 
fortunes.  As  soon  as  these  shipowners,  etc.,  began 
to  consider  the  draft  conventions  they  found  that 
there  were  fundamental  differences  in  the  national 
laws  on  an  enormous  number  of  points,  answering 
to  different  national  views  of  commercial  relations 
and  obligations  and  responsibility  and  conduct, 
and  that  no  unification  was  possible  unless  every- 
one was  prepared  to  give  up  something.  It  can- 
not, therefore,  be  argued  that  International  Gov- 
ernment and  agreement  was  possible  or  easy  in 
the  Maritime  Committee  because  the  interests 
involved  were  unimportant  or  obviously  the  same. 
Yet,  in  practically  every  case,  and  on  the  most 
controversial  subjects,  when  face  to  face  in  the 
Conferences,  these  trade  rivals  were  able  to  come 
to  an  agreement. 

The  verbatim  reports  of  the  Conferences  are  of 
extraordinary  interest  to  the  student  of  Interna- 
tional Government,  as  showing  in  concrete  form 
the  relation  of  national  interests  in  the  world  of 
shipping,  the  motives  making  for  International 
Government,  and  the  methods  of  obtaining  that 
government  through  agreement.  I  propose  to 


276  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

examine  in  some  detail  some  of  the  points  dis- 
cussed and  decided,  because  they  will  not  only 
furnish  the  proof  of  the  statements  in  the  preced- 
ing paragraphs,  but  they  will,  I  believe,  help  to 
throw  light  upon  the  general  question  of  the  rela- 
tion of  national  interests  to  International  Govern- 
ment and  of  international  interests  to  National 
Government. 

It  is  desirable  to  say  a  few  words  first  about  the 
two  Conventions  which  were  at  length  embodied 
by  the  States  themselves  in  the  law  of  nations. 
The  Conventions  signed  in  1910  established  a  uni- 
form law  of  the  sea  for: 

(1)  Indemnities  due  by  reason  of  damage 
caused  to  ships,  persons,  or  things  by  collision, 
no  matter  in  what  waters  the  collision  takes 
place. 

(2)  Conditions  under  which  remuneration 
for  assistance  or  salvage  becomes  due. 

Now  to  take  one  point  only,  in  the  Law  of  Collision 
there  was  a  profound  difference  of  principle  in 
apportioning  liability  between  Anglo-American  and 
Continental  practice.  Before  any  unification  of 
law  could  be  achieved,  the  Committee  had  to  face 
the  task  of  obtaining  the  assent  of  one  or  other 
party  to  the  abandonment  of  their  national  prin- 
ciple. Several  cases  of  similar  divergence  had  to 
be  dealt  with  in  regard  to  these  two  departments 
of  Maritime  Law.  They  were  all  solved,  and 
most  of  the  solutions  were,  to  quote  the  report  of 
the  Committee  itself,  "in  conformity  with  Anglo- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  277 

American  law,  and  those  which  differ  therefrom 
are  not  due  to  mere  theoretical  speculation,  but 
have  stood  the  test  of  long  years — in  some  cases 
centuries — of  judiciary  practice  in  important  coun- 
tries, where  they  have  given  satisfaction."  Again, 
in  the  Convention  on  Collisions,  the  Committee 
had  to  decide  the  extremely  important  and  con- 
troversial question  as  to  which  court  should  have 
jurisdiction  in  collision  cases.  And  in  order  to 
show  what  delicate  questions  were  raised  by  these 
Conventions,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the  Ger- 
man delegate  proposed  at  one  moment  that  the 
Convention  on  Collisions  should  include  a  clause 
doing  away  altogether  with  the  responsibility  of 
shipowners  for  the  faults  of  the  masters — a  pro- 
posal which,  if  accepted,  would  have  revolution- 
ized the  law  and  commercial  practice  of  most 
nations. 

What  becomes  clear  from  the  discussions  on 
these  Conventions  is  that  despite  the  strong  tend- 
ency to  identify  national  interests  with  existing 
individual  national  practices,  customs,  and  laws, 
the  international  interests  in  a  uniform  interna- 
tional practice  and  law  are  far  stronger.  The 
truth  is  that  the  interests  of  shipowners  or  traders 
are  far  more  international  than  national — the  in- 
terests of  a  group  of  German  shipowners  and  a 
group  of  English  shipowners,  or  of  a  group  of 
French  traders  and  a  group  of  Swedish  traders, 
are  far  more  nearly  the  same  than  are  those  of 
British  shipowners  and  British  workingmen.  The 
group  interests  of  shipowners  and  traders  lie  pre- 


278  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

dominantly  in  abolishing  everything  which  im- 
pedes the  international  intercourse  of  trade,  and 
therefore  everything  impeding  that  intercourse 
which  results  from  national  systems  of  Govern- 
ment.* That  is  why,  when  they  are  gathered 
together  in  the  Conferences  of  the  Maritime  Com- 
mittee, they  are  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  national 
and  traditional  customs  and  laws  of  commerce  in 
which  they  have  grown  up  in  order  to  gain  the 
uniformity  of  international  laws  and  customs.  I 
propose  to  give  one  or  two  examples  of  questions 
discussed  in  the  Conferences  which  will  show  this 
psychology  at  work,  and  will  more  clearly  exhibit 
the  causes  of  it. 

In  the  two  conventions  already  referred  to 
British  law  may  be  said  generally  to  have  tri- 
umphed over  Continental;  my  first  example  will 
show  British  law  yielding  to  Continental.  At  the 
conference  of  1913,  when  the  draft  International 
Freight  Code  was  being  considered,  Articles  8  and 
9  as  drafted  permitted  the  withdrawal  of  the 
shipper  from  the  contract  before  the  commence- 
ment of  the  voyage,  on  payment  of  half  freight. 
This  provision  is  contrary  to  British  practice  and 
law,  though  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  law  and 


*  It  is  perhaps  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  support  of  a  policy  of 
protection  by  some  of  these  groups  does  not  invalidate  the  statement. 
The  shipowner  or  trader  who  supports  such  a  policy  hopes  or  imagines 
that  he  will  be  able  to  impede  international  commercial  intercourse  for 
his  rivals  without  impeding  it  for  himself.  If  he  believed  that  protection 
harmed  himself  as  much  as  his  rival  he  would  be  a  free-trader.  Of  course, 
even  shipowners  and  traders  are  sometimes  mistaken  as  to  where  their 
true  interests  lie,  and  as  to  what  is  the  real  effect  of  their  actions. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 279 

practice  of  the  Continent.  It  was  most  strenu- 
ously resisted  by  the  British  delegates  and  sup- 
ported by  the  Continental.  Eventually  the  British 
delegation  asked  that  the  question  should  be  post- 
poned until  the  following  day  in  order  to  allow 
them  time  for  consultation.  The  British  ship- 
owners had  expressed  their  doubts  as  to  whether 
such  a  provision  did  not  imperil  the  interests  of 
the  shipowner  in  favor  of  the  shipper.  But  next 
day  Mr.  Batten,  on  behalf  of  the  British  delegates, 
withdrew  their  opposition  in  the  following  words : — 
"We  were  profoundly  impressed,  I  may  say,  not 
only  with  the  manner  in  which  they  (the  arguments 
of  the  Continental  delegates)  were  stated,  but  with 
the  real  substance  of  the  argument  which  formed 
the  real  force  of  the  statements  that  were  made. 
We  were  profoundly  impressed  also  with  the  state- 
ment— that  this  code,  as  drafted,  not  only  repre- 
sents the  considered  judgment  of  the  majority  of 
seafaring  nations  of  the  world,  but  is  found  to  work 
without  difficulty  or  inconvenience  in  the  disputes 
which  unfortunately  arise  in  the  Courts  of  the 
different  countries  in  which  this  law  is  enforced." 

My  second  case  illustrates  well  the  actual  forces 
at  work  in  the  minds  of  shipping  and  commercial 
men  which  make  for  international  regulation  and 
international  laws.  The  Conference  considered 
the  question  of  Safety  at  Sea,  and  passed  the  fol- 
lowing resolution: — "The  Conference  is  of  opinion 
that  an  International  Agreement  on  the  safety  of 
navigation  would  be  usefully  directed  to  the  for- 
mation of  general  rules  in  matters  of  wireless 


280  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

telegraphy,  water-tight  compartments,  life-boats 
and  life-saving  apparatus,  and  deck-loads.  The 
Conference  further  recommends  the  establishment 
of  an  international  permanent  body  of  a  technical 
and  advisory  character  with  a  view  (a)  to  centralize 
all  documentary  information  regarding  the  safety 
of  life  at  sea,  and  secure  its  communication  and 
interchange;  (b)  to  facilitate  the  development  of 
reciprocity  between  the  nations  as  to  the  laws  and 
regulations  relating  to  such  objects;  and  (c)  to 
prepare  all  necessary  refoims  and  amendments  to 
the  International  Regulations,  and  secure  uniform- 
ity of  application." 

In  the  discussion  it  was  generally  agreed  that 
excessive  deck-loads  are  a  serious  danger.  But 
any  attempt  at  national  regulation  immediately 
raises  difficulties .  In  the  first  place,  the  very  fact 
that  it  is  national  will  probably  unfairly  damage 
some  purely  "national  interests,"  because  you  will 
be  subjecting  your  own  shipowners  to  restrictions 
which  it  is  impossible  to  enforce  to  an  equal  extent 
on  foreign  shipowners.  Moreover,  national  re- 
strictions, even  if  enforced,  can,  in  the  case  of 
shipping  which  is  continually  passing  out  of  the 
national  jurisdiction  into  the  jurisdiction  of  foreign 
States  and  foreign  ports,  only  be  enforced  in  a 
partial  and  erratic  manner.  These  defects  are 
clearly  shown  in  the  attempt  of  the  British  Board 
of  Trade  to  regulate  the  height  of  deck-loads.  Sir 
Edward  Beauchamp  described  the  position  very 
well  to  the  Conference.  "In  England,"  he  said, 
"we  are  in  a  very  anomalous  position.  We  passed 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  281 

the  Merchant  Shipping  Act  of  1906  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  A  provision  was 
made  that  no  vessel,  either  British  or  foreign, 
should  come  into  any  English  port  during  certain 
months  of  the  year  carrying  deck-loads.  But  they 
were  unable  to  proceed  any  further;  they  could 
not  restrict  the  carriage  of  these  cargoes  by  British 
vessels  when  they  were  going  to  a  Continental 
port;  and  therefore  I  think  that,  if  it  should  be 
considered  that  it  is  dangerous  to  carry  these  car- 
goes, it  seems  to  me  necessary  that  it  should  be 
the  subject  of  international  agreement."  The  re- 
sult was  unanimity  in  favor  of  international  legis- 
lation. Sir  Walter  Runciman,  for  instance,  said: — 
"The  height  and  weight  of  deck-loads,  in  my  opin- 
ion, should  be  internationally  fixed  and  regulated. 
I  say  that  the  deck-loads  are  abnormally  high  at 
the  present  time,  without  any  restriction  whatever, 
coming  to  foreign  Continental  ports.  What  I  am 
contending  for  is  that  if  there  is  to  be  an  alteration 
in  the  deck-loads — that  is,  if  they  are  to  be  reduced 
in  any  measure,  it  ought  to  be  international."  And 
Mr.  Noble  expressed  it  thus: — "What  we  do  say 
from  the  British  point  of  view  is  this :  that  what- 
ever has  to  be  done  should  be  done  on  an  inter- 
national basis,  and  that  we  should  all  be  on  the 
same  footing." 

These  examples  will  show,  I  think,  that  Inter- 
nationalism and  International  Government  are  no 
fantastic  ideals  to  the  minds  of  great  shipowners 
and  the  great  captains  of  commerce.  For  them 
international  interests  are  just  as,  or  even  more, 
20 


282  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

real  and  insistent  than  national.  But  before  leav- 
ing this  subject  of  maritime  law  I  cannot  resist  the 
desire  to  deal  with  one  more  question  which  shows 
with  great  clearness  how  modern  conditions  of  in- 
dustry and  commerce  are  forcing  the  organization 
of  society  into  international  rather  than  national 
lines.  When  the  draft  code  on  freight  was  dis- 
cussed by  the  Conference  the  proposed  Article  20 
gave  rise  to  prolonged  debate.  This  article  dealt 
with  "through  bills  of  lading."  In  modern  com- 
merce the  machinery  of  distribution  is  highly 
complicated,  and  a  commodity  produced  in  one 
country  and  consumed  in  another  may  pass 
through  many  different  hands,  by  rail  and  ship, 
between  the  producer  and  seller  in  the  first  country 
and  the  wholesale  dealer  and  buyer  in  the  second. 
That  this  trade  is  and  can  only  be  carried  on 
through  a  highly  developed  system  of  ciedit  is  an 
elementary  fact  of  economics.  The  machinery  of 
distribution  through  its  bills  of  lading,  its  bills 
of  exchange,  etc.,  which  become  negotiable  instru- 
ments, itself  supplies  the  machinery  of  credit.  A 
through  bill  of  lading  explains  itself,  but  when 
converted,  as  it  is  converted  by  acceptance  by  a 
bank,  into  a  negotiable  instrument,  it  is  an  instru- 
ment of  credit  which  covers  the  transport  of  a 
commodity  through  two  or  more  different  and  dis- 
tinct transporting  hands.  The  through  bill  of 
lading  is  a  comparatively  modern  invention  of  the 
American  business  world.  Its  conveniences  are 
obvious  so  far  as  international  trade  is  concerned, 
but  it  is  also  open  to  grave  abuse,  especially  when 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  283 

the  legal  rights  and  obligations  which  accrue  under 
it  vary  from  country  to  country  and  are  not  clearly 
defined.  For  instance,  the  producer  in  America 
is  to  consign  to  the  dealer  in  England  100  bales 
of  cotton.  These  bales  are  to  be  put  on  the  rail- 
way, consigned  to  an  American  port,  where  they 
are  transferred  from  the  hands  of  the  railway 
company  into  the  hands  and  vessel  of  a  shipowner 
by  whom  they  are  to  be  delivered  into  the  hands 
of  the  dealer  in  England.  The  through  bill  of 
lading  is  signed  by  an  agent  of  the  railway  com- 
pany in  some  country  station  in  America,  is 
accepted  by  a  bank,  and  becomes  a  negotiable 
instrument  so  that  the  security  of  the  holder  is 
100  bales  of  cotton  said  to  have  been  loaded  on  to 
the  railway.  The  through  bill  of  lading  covers 
not  only  the  transport  by  rail,  but  also  by  ship. 
Now,  suppose  when  the  ship  arrives  in  England 
there  are  found  to  be  not  100,  but  only  50  bales 
of  cotton,  what  are  to  be  the  legal  rights  and 
obligations  of  the  several  parties  ?  Against  whom, 
for  instance,  is  the  holder  to  claim — against  the 
railway  company  or  the  shipowner,  or  both  ?  And, 
as  Sir  Norman  Hill  showed,  very  great  difficulties 
and  much  litigation  have  already  arisen  over  this 
system.  The  planter  and  the  railway  official  who 
has  to  receive  the  cotton  may  be  friends;  they 
may  go  out  fishing  together  at  the  time  of  deliv- 
ery. Then,  perhaps,  the  railway  man  signs  the 
through  bill  of  lading  for  100  bales  and  only  50 
bales  are  loaded  on  the  railway.  When  the  bill  is 
handed  over  at  the  port  to  the  master  of  the  ship 


284 


he  finds  that  there  are  only  50  bales.  Then  he  is 
told  that  the  other  50  bales  are  coming  on  later 
and  can  be  loaded  into  the  next  ship — a  sort  of 
occurrence  which  is  by  no  means  uncommon,  as 
every  shipowner  knows.  The  master  is  faced  with 
having  to  refuse  the  50  bales — a  course  which  may 
occasion  great  loss  and  inconvenience — or,  if  he 
accepts  them,  with  making  himself  liable  on  the 
through  bill  of  lading  to  the  holder  for  100  bales, 
of  which  50  were  perhaps  never  delivered  to  the 
railway  at  all.  As  Sir  Norman  Hill  said:  "Con- 
siderable frauds  have  been  practised  by  through 
bills  of  lading.  If  banks  are  careless,  they  can  be 
used  to  perpetrate  the  most  serious  frauds." 

Yet  the  convenience  of  this  system  of  through 
bills  under  modern  conditions  of  transport  is  obvi- 
ous. They  are,  in  fact,  a  natural  development  of 
the  machinery  of  credit  and  transport  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  modern  international  trade.  Only 
it  is  essential,  if  they  are  to  be  used  without  being 
abused,  that  all  parties  through  whose  hands  they 
pass  shall  know  what  uniform  legal  obligations  and 
rights  result  from  them.  Article  20  of  the  draft 
Convention  discussed  by  the  Conference  attempted 
to  lay  down  what  these  uniform  legal  rights  and 
obligations  should  be.  There  were  two  alterna- 
tive suggestions.  Under  the  first,  where  goods  are 
carried  under  a  through  bill  of  lading,  no  carrier 
would  be  liable  except  for  loss  or  damage  done  to 
the  goods  whilst  he  is  in  charge  of  them,  but  the 
consignee  would  be  at  liberty  to  sue  the  last  or 
through  carrier  for  any  loss  or  damage  done  to  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 285 

goods.  Under  the  second  proposal,  which  came 
from  the  German  delegates,  the  holder  of  a  through 
bill  of  lading  would  have  the  right  to  claim  deliv- 
ery of  the  merchandise  from  the  last  carrier,  and 
the  latter  might  not  allege  as  defense  against  him 
that  the  loss  or  damage  had  occurred  during  an 
anterior  portion  of  the  through  carriage.  At  the 
Copenhagen  conference  there  was  considerable  dif- 
ference of  opinion  upon  these  two  proposals,  but 
there  was  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  neces- 
sity of  some  international  legislation. 

B. — International  Labor  Legislation 

Labor  legislation,  in  the  modern  sense  of  legisla- 
tion for  the  protection  of  the  worker  against  the 
evils  of  our  factory  and  industrial  system,  is,  of 
course,  entirely  a  growth  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  British  Act  of  1802  was  the  first  at- 
tempt of  the  State  to  deal  with  the  factory  ques- 
tion, but  for  many  years  after  that  date  the 
intervention  or  non-intervention  of  the  State  was 
the  subject  of  embittered  controversy.  To-day  in 
most  of  the  countries  of  Europe  men  have  out- 
grown that  controversy.  Practically  everyone  now 
admits  that  the  industrial  system  which  men  have 
invented,  if  allowed  to  operate  uncontrolled  by 
any  collective  regulations,  must  end  in  disaster  to 
the  wage-earner.  Labor  legislation  of  this  kind  is 
essentially  group  interest  legislation.  The  organi- 
zation of  industry  in  factories  which  has  followed 
the  invention  of  machinery,  if  unregulated  by  some 
force  external  to  the  two  groups  of  employers  and 


286  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

employed,  leads  inevitably  to  the  sacrifice  of  the 
interests  of  the  latter  group  to  those  of  the  former. 
In  all  this  kind  of  labor  legislation,  from  the  first 
British  Factory  Act  of  1819  to  the  last  regulation 
issuing  from  the  Home  Office,  or  the  Reichsamt 
des  Innern,  or  the  Ministere  du  Travail,  the  State 
is  attempting  to  protect  the  group  interests  of  the 
wage-earner  against  the  group  interests  of  the  capi- 
talist and  employer. 

It  is  possible,  therefore,  to  assert  dogmatically 
that  to-day  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe  the 
opinion  is  universal  that  industrial  relations  of 
employer  to  employed  must,  in  the  interests  of 
the  latter,  be  subjected  to  the  control  of  national 
government,  and  must  be  the  object  of  national 
legislation.  But  that  in  practice  this  control  has 
been  efficient  or  satisfactory  very  few  people  would 
assert.  Everywhere  millions  of  wage-earners  live 
on  the  verge  of  or  in  extreme  poverty,  everywhere 
hours  of  labor  are  inordinately  long  and  wages  in- 
ordinately low,  everywhere  children  are  forced 
into  the  factories  when  they  ought  to  be  in  schools, 
and  everywhere  conditions  under  which  the  men, 
the  women,  and  the  children  work  are  such  as  to 
cause  physical  degeneration,  the  most  horrible 
"occupational  diseases,"  and  premature  death. 
The  main  causes  of  this  failure  and  of  these  in- 
convenient facts  that  stare  our  civilization  in  the 
face  are  two.  First,  nationally  the  group  inter- 
ests of  the  employer  are  everywhere  not  only 
enormously  stronger,  but  are  considered  to  be 
more  important  than  those  of  the  employed. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  287 

That  German  or  English  capitalists  and  manu- 
facturers should  win  or  lose  a  "market"  or  a  con- 
cession where  they  can  perform  the  noble  task  of 
selling  dear  to  and  buying  cheap  from  the  naked 
and  unsuspecting  savage  (and  often  eventually 
exterminate  him  by  the  rapid  process  of  shooting 
or  the  slower  process  of  cheap  gin),  that  the  Ger- 
man or  English  financier  should  have  a  fair  chance 
of  swelling  his  bank  balance,  are  universally 
recognized  to  be  matters  of  such  vital  national 
importance  that  in  peace  the  respective  Foreign 
Offices  are  always  expending  the  last  ounce  of 
their  brains  upon  them,  and  in  many  a  war  the 
nation  has  been  ready  with  its  proverbial  shilling 
and  drop  of  blood.  These  are  considered  to  be 
such  elementary  facts  that  even  the  working 
classes  of  each  country  have  been  again  and  again 
deluded  into  identifying  the  group  interests  of  the 
employers  and  financiers  with  national  interests. 
It  is  still  a  paradox  to  talk  of  high  wages  and 
short  hours  and  the  non-employment  of  children 
as  national  interests:  the  interests  of  labor  are 
still  almost  entirely  outside  the  purview  of  For- 
eign Offices — where  the  diplomatic  hall-porter 
knows  many  a  financier  by  sight,  but  has  never 
seen  a  trade  union  leader — and  the  first  shilling 
and  the  first  drop  of  blood  have  still  to  be  spent 
in  war  on  a  national  interest  which  is  even  re- 
motely working  class. 

This  identification  of  the  group  interests  of  the 
small,  wealthy  governing  class  with  national  inter- 
ests has  had  a  further  effect.  The  regulation  of 


288  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

industry  by  the  State  in  the  interests  of  the  wage- 
earners  is  prima  facie  against  the  interests  of  this 
small  class.  Therefore,  whenever  any  practical 
proposal  to  regulate  industry  in  that  way  has  been 
made,  it  has  always  been  opposed  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  contrary  to  vital  national  interests — 
and  the  argument  is  sound,  provided  that  we 
admit  the  extremely  doubtful  assumption  that  the 
interests  of  the  small  national  group  are  more 
national  than  the  large  national  group.  That  this 
argument  has  continually  been  successfully  used 
can  best  be  shown  by  examples.  Everyone  knows 
that  little  more  than  half  a  century  ago  the  State 
restriction  of  hours  of  labor  of  women  and  children 
was  resisted  by  the  altruistic  employers  in  the 
interests  of  the  women  and  children  themselves. 
The  day  has,  however  (or  had  before  July,  1914), 
gone  by  when  it  was  possible  to  convince  people 
that  it  was  to  the  interest  of  the  twelve-year-old 
son  of  a  cotton  spinner  to  work  fourteen  hours  a 
day  in  a  factory,  and  we  no  longer  even  believe 
that  it  is  in  the  interest  of  a  girl  of  the  working 
class  that  her  living  body  should  gradually  de- 
compose from  phosphorus  poisoning  contracted  in 
making  matches.  It  is  admitted  to-day  that  it 
is  in  the  interests  of  both  the  child  and  the  girl 
that  the  State  should  regulate  industry  in  such  a 
way  that  they  should  neither  of  them  be  able  to 
obtain  employment  of  that  kind.  But  whenever 
a  proposal  is  made  for  the  State  to  make  such  kind 
of  employment  illegal,  it  is  still  resisted  by  the 
employing  groups,  and  a  different  argument  is 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  289 

used.  "It  may  be,"  they  say,  "in  the  interests 
of  young  persons  and  children  of  the  working 
classes  to  restrict  their  hours  of  labor;  but  if  we  in 
England  do  this  and  the  Germans  and  Belgians 
do  not  do  it,  the  most  vital  national  interests  will 
be  jeopardized.  If  we  are  prevented  by  law  from 
working  our  employees  more  than  ten  hours,  while 
the  German  employer  works  his  eleven  or  twelve 
hours,  how  can  we  compete  with  him?  By  a  law 
like  this  you  will  ruin  us,  and  you  will  destroy 
this  national  industry  which  is  a  vital  national 
industry  of  the  country."  This  kind  of  argument 
has  been  used  by  the  employing  groups  against 
every  proposal  to  apply  State  regulations  to  con- 
ditions of  employment,  and,  indeed,  against  every 
attempt  to  protect  the  interests  of  employed 
against  employer.  It  has  been  used  by  them  to 
resist  increases  of  wages,  limitation  of  the  hours  of 
labor,  limitation  of  the  employment  of  children 
and  young  persons,  restrictions  on  the  employ- 
ment of  women,  the  regulation  of  minimum  wages 
and  the  abolition  of  sweating  by  means  of  Wage 
Boards,  the  regulation  of  dangerous  trades,  and 
the  prohibition  of  the  use  of  materials  which 
poison  the  men  and  women  who  have  to  handle 
them.  It  is  used  not  in  one  country,  but  in  every 
country:  the  German  employer  pleads  that  he 
cannot  reduce  his  hours  because  the  Belgian  em- 
ployer will  not  reduce  his,  the  Belgian  cannot  re- 
duce his  because  of  the  French  employer,  the 
French  employer  cannot  reduce  his  because  of  the 
British  employer,  and  the  British  cannot  reduce 


290  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

his  because  of  the  German — and  so  we  get  the 
complete  and  noble  circle  of  vital  national  inter- 
ests of  employers.* 

Thus,  here  again,  in  another  department  of 
modern  life,  there  emerges  out  of  the  complica- 
tions of  society  an  international  interest  which 
can  only  be  served  by  international  government 
and  cosmopolitan  legislation.  If  it  is  to  the  in- 
terest of  every  State  to  regulate  the  conditions  of 
employment  within  its  territory,  but  it  is  pre- 
vented from  doing  so  unless  all  the  other  States 
do  likewise,  then  clearly  the  solution  ought  to  be 
found  in  unification  of  the  Labor  laws  of  the 
different  countries  through  international  agree- 
ments. Robert  Owen,  who  during  his  life  was 

*  It  is  only  fair  to  the  twentieth  century  employer  to  say  that  he  is  no 
less  altruistic  than  his  predecessor  of  the  nineteenth.  The  employer  to-day 
resists  these  reforms  in  the  interest  not  of  himself  and  his  class,  but  of  his 
work-people  and  of  the  nation.  Just  as  the  employer  fifty  years  ago 
opposed  the  interference  with  the  liberty  of  a  child  of  twelve  to  work  as 
long  as  he  or  she  wanted  to  work  because  such  interference  was  against 
the  interests  of  the  child,  the  working  classes,  and  the  nation,  so  the 
employer  to-day  argues  that  to  limit  the  hours  of  labor  or  to  raise  wages, 
or  to  fix  a  minimum  wage  will  be  disastrous  to  the  wage-earner  and  the 
nation.  If  hours  are  shortened  or  wages  raised,  we  shall  not  be  able  to 
compete  with  the  foreigner,  our  industry  will  perish,  and  the  wage-earner 
will  find  himself  without  employment  and  without  wages.  Naturally, 
many  of  the  workers  themselves  are  terrified  by  these  altruistic  arguments. 
Unfortunately,  or  fortunately,  in  practice  whenever  regulations  are  made, 
or  hours  shortened,  or  wages  raised,  these  terrible  prophecies  are  not  ful- 
filled. Export  trade  flourished  even  where  wages  have  risen;  short  hours 
produce  increased  output  and  increased  earnings;  and  the  Trade  Boards 
Act,  which  was  going  to  ruin  the  Chain  Trade  and  the  sweated  women 
who  worked  for  an  hour,  only  seemed  to  benefit  both  (see  on  these 

points  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  of  Factories  and  Work- 
shops for  the  Year  1914,  passim,  and  particularly  p.  59,  as  regards  hours 
and  output,  and  as  regards  the  Trade  Boards  Act). 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  291 

certainly  the  most  typical  of  cranks,  but  since  his 
death  has  been  numbered  among  the  greatest  of 
the  prophets,  was  the  first  to  perceive  this  inter- 
national interest  and  the  need  of  International 
Government,  and  in  1818  he  "urged  that  the 
Congress  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  in  session  at 
Aachen  .  .  .  should  appoint  a  Commission  to  ex- 
amine" how  this  need  could  be  met.  Owen,  in 
nearly  all  his  ideas,  was  at  least  fifty  years  before 
his  time,  and,  though  Daniel  Legrand  followed  in 
his  footsteps,  it  was  not  until  the  second  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  that  movement  to- 
wards internationalism  which  displayed  itself  in 
International  Congresses  and  the  formation  of 
International  Associations,  that  the  importance 
of  this  idea  of  international  labor  legislation  be- 
came widely  recognized.  Then,  "Congresses  of 
charitable  bodies,  Congresses  concerned  with  ques- 
tions of  hygiene  and  of  social  reform,  promoted 
the  diffusion  of  the  idea,  associations  of  working 
men  gave  it  support,  Prince  Bismarck  recom- 
mended it  for  consideration,  and  the  theologian 
Thiersch  appealed  to  the  German  Emperor  to 
take  the  initiative."  By  1876  the  idea  had  got 
as  far  as  the  Swiss  Federal  Council,  which  sub- 
sequently proposed  to  invite  the  Governments  of 
Europe  to  a  diplomatic  Conference.  It  took 
another  fourteen  years  for  the  Conference  to 
materialize,  and  then,  in  1890,  it  met  in  Berlin, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany.* 

*  The  facts  and  quotations  in  this  paragraph  are  taken  from  an  article 
by  Ernst  Francke  on  "International  Labor  Treaties,"  in  the  Economic 


292  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  official  and  diplomatic  Conference  of  1890, 
like  so  many  others  of  the  same  kind,  was  able  to 
agree  on  certain  "principles,"  but  did  not  agree 
to  put  these  principles  into  practice.  But  the 
need  for  international  legislation  continued  to  ex- 
ist and  to  grow  more  insistent  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  were  concerned  to  alleviate  something 
of  the  evils  of  industrialism  in  the  different  coun- 
tries. At  last  there  was  formed  in  1900  a  volun- 
tary international  association,  the  International 
Association  for  Labor  Legislation,  the  object  of 
which  is  to  do  for  Labor  Laws  what  we  have  seen 
the  International  Maritime  Committee  doing  for 
Maritime  Commercial  Law.  Like  that  Committee, 
the  Association  is  formed  of  national  sections,  which 
elect  representatives  to  a  central  Committee,  which 
has  its  seat  and  an  International  Labor  Office  at 
Basle,  in  Switzerland.  There  are  now  thirteen 
national  sections.  The  Committee  holds  a  gen- 
eral meeting  every  two  years,  and  at  these  meet- 
ings the  Governments  of  all  the  principal  indus- 
trial countries  are  represented.  The  revenue  of 
the  association  was  in  1911  about  85,000  frs.,  of 


Journal  of  June,  1909.  The  edict  of  the  German  Emperor,  quoted  by 
Herr  Francke,  shows  the  idea  of  those  responsible  for  the  Conference,  and 
the  facts  which  made  international  legislation  necessary:  "I  am  determined 
to  lend  my  support  to  improving  the  conditions  of  work  of  German  work- 
men as  far  as  lies  in  my  power,  which  is  limited  by  the  necessity  of  main- 
taining the  international  position  of  German  industry  and  of  securing  its 

existence  and  that  also  of  the  working-classes If  the  difficulties 

to  be  treated  at  the  International  Conference  ....  cannot  be  sur- 
mounted by  an  understanding  between  the  countries  anxious  to  command 
international  markets,  they  may  at  least  be  minimized." 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  293 

which  63,550  frs.  came  from  subsidies  from  four- 
teen Governments. 

The  International  Labor  Association  has,  like 
the  Maritime  Committee,  succeeded  in  obtaining 
the  signature  of  a  large  number  of  States  to  two 
international  treaties,  the  object  and  effect  of 
which  are  to  unify  national  laws.  It  is,  therefore, 
another  example  of  a  voluntary  association  taking 
a  direct  part  in  the  development  of  International 
Government  and  of  cosmopolitan  legislation.  Its 
success  has,  however,  been  far  less  complete  within 
its  own  sphere  than  that  of  the  Maritime  Com- 
mittee within  the  sphere  of  Maritime  Law,  and  I 
propose  therefore  to  consider  briefly  the  methods 
and  constitution  of  the  two  associations  and  the 
interests  involved,  because  it  is  these  differences 
of  methods,  constitution,  and  interests  which  have 
caused  the  differences  in  achievement. 

The  constitution  of  the  Labor  Association  dif- 
fers materially  from  that  of  the  Maritime  Com- 
mittee. The  strength  of  the  latter  lay,  as  we  saw, 
in  its  being  so  representative  of  the  group  interest 
most  nearly  affected  by  Maritime  Law.  Even 
the  Foreign  Office  could  hardly  think  that  an 
agreement  supported  by  the  President  of 
Lloyd's,  the  President  of  the  London  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  and  all  the  principal  Shipping  Asso- 
ciations could  be  damaging  to  vital  British  com- 
mercial and  shipping  interests.  The  Committee 
is  so  important  because  it  provides  machinery  for 
representation  of  these  group  interests  in  an  inter- 
national organ,  and  allows  these  group  interests 


294  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

which  run  in  international  rather  than  national 
lines  to  operate.  The  Labor  Association  can 
hardly  be  said  to  do  the  same.  The  group  in- 
terests most  nearly  affected  by  Labor  Laws  are 
those  of  employers  and  employed.  The  lines  in 
which  they  run  are  in  reality  also  international 
rather  than  national.  Many  people  may  be  dis- 
posed at  first  sight  to  deny  this  assertion;  but  it 
is  clearly  proved  by  the  facts ;  first,  that  organized 
labor  in  the  different  countries  and  those  inter- 
national federations  of  organized  labor,  about 
which  more  will  have  to  be  said  in  a  later  chapter, 
are  almost  always  in  agreement  as  to  what  they 
desire  in  labor  legislation,  and,  secondly,  that  the 
attitude  of  employers  towards  such  legislation  is 
the  same  in  all  countries.  But  the  Association  is 
not  representative  of  these  two  groups  in  the  same 
way  as  the  Maritime  Committee  is  representative 
of  shipping  and  commercial  groups.  It  would  not 
be  unfair  to  say  that  within  the  Association  the 
impetus  comes  mainly  from  people  who  can  be 
described  as  "social  reformers,"  and  secondly  from 
Labor.  The  capitalist  and  employing  interest  is 
hardly  represented  at  all.  This  can  best  be  shown 
by  a  consideration  of  the  membership  of  the  Brit- 
ish Section.  It  will  be  found  that  the  individual 
members  are  almost  all  social  reformers,  while  the 
affiliated  societies  consist  of  nearly  thirty  labor 
organizations,  nearly  ten  societies  of  which  the 
object  is  some  kind  of  social  reform,  and  only  one 
association  of  employers.  The  result  is  that  at  a 
general  meeting  of  the  International  Committee 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  295 

you  do  not  find  the  great  captains  of  industry 
present  or  the  national  federations  of  capitalists 
and  employers  represented,  and  the  conferences 
are  composed  of  the  delegates  of  Governments, 
social  reformers,  representatives  of  organized  labor, 
and  a  very  few  of  the  more  enlightened  employers. 
I  do  not  for  one  moment  wish  to  imply  that  the 
International  Association  for  Labor  Legislation 
has  not  accomplished  a  great  deal  in  its  short  ex- 
istence, but  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  to 
point  out  its  relation  as  an  international  organism 
to  an  association  like  the  International  Maritime 
Committee,  because  the  difference  of  their  con- 
stitution has  affected  their  achievements.  The 
Labor  Association,  like  the  Maritime  Committee, 
attempts  through  its  national  sections  to  draw  up 
and  obtain  agreement  to  International  Conven- 
tions which  will  unify  Labor  laws  in  the  different 
countries,  and  thus  fix,  for  instance,  an  inter- 
national maximum  working  day  for  women,  chil- 
dren, or  young  persons,  or  establish  an  international 
prohibition  against  the  use  industrially  of  dan- 
gerous substances  and  processes.  But  when  the 
Association  has  succeeded  in  obtaining  agreement 
in  its  own  bosom,  it  is  not  nearly  in  so  strong  a 
position  as  the  Maritime  Committee  in  approach- 
ing the  Foreign  Offices  and  asking  for  the  accept- 
ance of  its  draft  conventions  by  a  diplomatic  con- 
ference. It  cannot  claim  that  all  the  most  im- 
portant group  interests  involved  are  in  agreement. 
The  capitalist  and  employing  interests  and  groups 
have  not  been  represented,  and  are  not  in  agree- 


296  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

ment;  and  those  groups,  as  we  have  seen,  have  the 
greatest  control  over  the  different  national  govern- 
ments, and  have  succeeded  in  inducing  the  popu- 
lar belief  that  their  interests  are  peculiarly  na- 
tional interests.  This  is  the  misfortune,  not  the 
fault,  of  the  Labor  Association:  it  would  probably 
be  quite  impossible  to  get  into  one  Association  the 
two  groups  of  employers  and  employed,  and  even 
if  you  did,  you  would  not  get  them  to  agree  upon 
Labor  legislation.  That  is  because  we  are  here 
dealing  with  group  interests  which,  unlike  national 
interests,  are  really  in  conflict  in  modern  society. 
The  real  cleavage  here  is  between  employer  and 
employed,  not  between  German  employer  and 
British  employer,  or  between  German  worker  and 
British  worker.  The  vital  interests  follow,  in  fact, 
international,  not  national,  lines.  If  the  German 
and  British  employer  can  compete  on  an  equality 
against  one  another  when  both  are  at  liberty  to 
work  women  ten  hours  a  day,  neither  of  them  will 
be  in  a  worse  or  a  better  position  as  against  the 
other  if  British  and  German  Labor  laws  reduce 
the  legal  day  for  women  from  ten  hours  to  eight. 
International  legal  limitation  of  hours  thus  does 
not  alter  the  relations  between  national  groups, 
but  it  does  very  materially  alter  the  relations  be- 
tween the  international  groups,  Capital  and  Labor. 
That  is  why  both  the  German  and  the  British  em- 
ployer will  be  found  to  resist  such  limitation,  and 
why  neither  enters  the  International  Labor  Asso- 
ciation. The  fact  that  the  employers  themselves 
base  their  resistance  on  national  interests  is  not 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  297 

relevant.  It  only  shows  how  successfully  they 
delude  people  into  identifying  the  employers'  in- 
terests with  national  interests.  Belief  in  a  fact 
is  certainly  a  fact,  but  is  no  proof  of  the  trueness 
of  the  belief.  The  belief  that  it  was  in  the  national 
interest  to  roast  citizens  alive  who  held  certain 
religious  opinions  used  to  be  a  fact:  we  now  recog- 
nize that  such  action  was  only  in  the  interest  of 
a  small  religious  group.  So  some  day  it  may  be 
widely  recognized  that  to  overwork  and  underpay 
the  majority  of  the  workers  of  the  nation,  though 
it  may  be  in  the  interest  of  a  small  international 
employing  group,  is  not  a  national  interest. 

The  preceding  paragraph  is  not  a  digression. 
The  necessity  of  applying  International  Govern- 
ment to  labor  legislation  has  been  recognized,  as 
we  saw,  even  by  a  King  of  Prussia  and  German 
Emperor.  The  attempt  to  apply  it  in  practice 
has  met  with  serious  difficulties.  The  important 
point  is  that  the  difficulties  are  due  not  to  a  con- 
flict of  national,  but  of  class,  interests.  Yet, 
despite  this  and  despite  the  overwhelming  influ- 
ence of  the  employing  class  in  national  govern- 
ment and  Foreign  Offices,  the  International  Asso- 
ciation for  Labor  Legislation  has  had  a  certain 
measure  of  success.  The  first  subjects  which  it 
took  up  were  the  use  of  white  phosphorus  in  the 
manufacture  of  matches  and  the  employment  of 
women  at  night.  In  both  cases  the  Association 
worked  out  the  basis  of  an  international  conven- 
tion. The  Swiss  Government  was  then  induced 

to  propose  a  diplomatic   conference.     The  Con- 
21 


298  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

ference  eventually  met  at  Berne  in  1905  and  again 
in  1906,  and  two  conventions  were  signed.  These 
two  conventions  are  worthy  of  brief  study. 

The  first  prohibits,  with  certain  exceptions, 
night  work  for  women.  Article  2  lays  down  that 
the  interval  of  repose  at  night  shall  be  a  minimum 
of  eleven  hours,  and  that  within  those  eleven  hours 
shall  be  included  the  period  from  10  p.m.  to  5 
a.m.  This  very  moderate  regulation  was  not  ob- 
tained without  great  difficulty,  and  the  argument 
was  freely  used  by  the  representatives  of  States 
"backward"  in  their  Labor  Laws  that  prohibition 
of  night  work  would  damage  certain  industries 
and  national  interests.  However,  this  treaty  was 
signed  by  thirteen  States,  including  all  the  chief 
industrial  countries  of  Europe.  To  meet  the 
wishes  of  the  "backward"  States  allowance  of 
from  two  to  ten  years'  grace  was  made  for  them 
to  give  effect  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty  after 
adherence.  When  steps  began  to  be  taken  in  the 
national  legislatures  to  put  the  treaty  into  oper- 
ation, considerable  opposition  arose  in  some  coun- 
tries. In  Spain,  for  instance,  when  a  Bill  was 
introduced  in  the  Cortes  in  1911,  agitation  against 
it  began  in  the  Catalonian  cotton-spinning  trade, 
and  it  was  asserted  that  the  trade  would  be  ruined 
if  night  work  of  women  was  prohibited.  Finally, 
however,  the  Act  was  passed,  with  the  provision 
that  it  should  not  come  into  operation  until  1914. 
It  is  interesting  also  to  note  that  the  Swedish 
Parliament  at  first  refused  to  ratify  the  Conven- 
tion for  another  reason,  namely,  because  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  299 

women  of  that  country  objected  to  legislation 
discriminating  between  male  and  female  labor. 
However,  in  this  case,  too,  the  opposition  eventually 
gave  way,  and  in  1909  a  Bill  for  the  prohibition  of 
night  work  for  women  passed  through  both  the 
Swedish  Houses  of  Parliament.  The  unification 
of  the  law  in  all  the  signatory  countries  has,  there- 
fore, now  been  carried  through. 

The  history  of  the  white  phosphorus  convention 
is  even  more  instructive  from  an  international 
point  of  view.  By  the  time  that  the  conference 
met,  an  efficient  substitute  for  this  substance  in 
the  manufacture  of  matches  had  been  discovered, 
and  several  States  had  legislation  designed  to  pre- 
vent the  use  of  white  phosphorus.  The  conven- 
tion proposed  at  the  conference  of  1905  prohibited 
the  manufacture,  import,  or  sale  of  matches  made 
with  this  material  in  the  territories  of  the  signa- 
tory States.  Great  opposition  was,  however, 
raised  by  several  States  on  the  ground  that  if 
they  signed  it  and  Japan,  an  exporting  country, 
which  was  not  represented  at  the  Conference,  did 
not  sign  it,  their  own  export  trade  would  be  sub- 
jected to  unfair  competition.  Accordingly,  the 
majority  of  the  States  made  the  signature  by 
Japan  a  condition  of  their  adherence,  and  the 
matter  was  left  in  this  position  at  the  close  of  the 
Conference.  At  the  Conference  of  1906  Japan 
was  again  unrepresented,  and  only  seven  *  States 
signed  the  convention,  while  of  these  seven,  as 

*The  seven  States  were  Germany,  Denmark,  France,  Italy,  Holland, 
Luxemburg,  and  Switzerland. 


300 


Professor  Reinsch  points  out,*  "the  prohibition 
was  already  in  force  in  five  .  .  .  while  in  the 
sixth  the  industry  was  almost  negligible."  But 
the  matter  did  not  rest  there:  the  Association 
worked  through  its  national  sections  to  obtain  the 
adherence  of  other  countries.  The  result  has  been 
that  Spain,  Great  Britain,  India,  and  the  majority 
of  the  British  Colonies  and  Possessions,  Norway, 
and  Belgium  have  since  adhered,  and  other  States 
have  adopted  legislation  which  conforms  to  the 
Convention.f  This  was  achieved  in  part  by  a 
kind  of  international  pressure  which  immediately 
resulted  from  the  original  international  agreement. 
For  instance,  as  Professor  Reinsch  remarks,  Great 
Britain  refused  to  sign  the  treaty  on  the  grounds 
that  her  export  trade  would  suffer  by  being  sub- 
jected to  restrictions  not  borne  by  competitors. 
"The  effect  of  the  treaty  was,  however,  practically 
to  exclude  British  matches  from  European  mar- 
kets," and  so  in  1908  an  Act  was  passed  pro- 
hibiting the  manufacture,  sale,  and  importation  of 
white  phosphorus  matches,  and  Britain  adhered 
to  the  Convention.  The  same  sort  of  pressure  is 
being  brought  to  bear  upon  Japan,  which  still 
stands  outside  the  treaty,  for  the  closing  of  her 
markets  in  India  and  Australia  will  be  a  strong  in- 
centive to  her  to  join.  At  any  rate,  it  is  remark- 
able that  to-day  Japan  and  Sweden  are  the  only 

*  Public  International  Unions,  p.  46. 

f  E.  g.,  the  United  States,  whose  constitution  prevents  it  from  conforming 
by  federal  legislation  to  the  Convention;  but  by  an  Act  of  1912  she  has 
placed  a  tax  on  the  manufacture  of  white  phosphorus  matches,  and  has 
prohibited  their  exportation  or  importation. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  301 

two  manufacturing  countries  which  stand  outside 
the  Convention. 

The  Association  also  took  up  the  questions  of 
the  hours  of  labor  of  women  and  young  persons, 
and  of  the  night  work  of  boys.  In  1913  these 
subjects  were  again  submitted  to  a  diplomatic 
conference  at  Berne  by  the  Swiss  Government. 
Bases  of  two  Conventions  were  accepted,  but  the 
spirit  in  which  the  diplomatists  acted  can  best  be 
shown  by  quoting  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  lead- 
ing members  of  the  Association,  Miss  Constance 
Smith:  "The  draft  Conventions  were  far  from 
admirable;  their  framers  went  so  far  in  the  spirit 
of  compromise  to  meet  the  objections  of  the  back- 
ward States  that  the  provisions  laid  down,  had 
they  been  accepted  without  modification,  would 
have  tended  to  depress  rather  than  to  raise  the 
standard  of  international  opinion  on  the  questions 
to  be  affected  by  them." 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  complication 
of  interests  to  be  affected  by  cosmopolitan  Labor 
Legislation  is  greater  than  that  affected  by  cos- 
mopolitan Maritime  Legislation,  and  the  success 
of  the  Association  has  been  more  difficult  and  less 
complete  than  that  of  the  Maritime  Committee. 
But  it  is  relevant  to  the  question  of  International 
Government  and  International  Social  Structure  to 
note  that  the  Association  has  deliberately  worked 
with  success  towards  the  unification  of  Labor 
Laws  by  a  method  other  than  that  of  International 
Conventions.  In  an  earlier  chapter,  I  remarked 
that  these  voluntary  International  Associations, 


302  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

like  the  Labor  Association,  act  as  direct  organs  of 
International  Government.  They  do  this  by 
forming  international  opinion  and  international 
agreement  among  their  members,  who  themselves 
in  many  cases  have  great  influence  upon  their  own 
National  Governments.  This  process  has  been 
most  noticeable  in  the  Labor  Association,  and 
constitutes  it  a  real  organ  or  organism  of  Inter- 
national Government.  In  the  first  place,  the 
officials  of  all  the  chief  industrial  countries  who 
administer  the  labor  laws  are  represented  at  the 
biennial  Conferences  of  the  Association.  The 
presence  of  these  Government  officials  has  two 
effects.  It  keeps  before  the  eyes  of  the  social  re- 
former in  the  Association  the  practical  difficulties 
which  are  immediately  apparent  in  a  scheme  to  an 
administrator:  it  prevents  the  work  of  the  Asso- 
ciation from  becoming  a  Utopia  of  pious  resolu- 
tions. But  it  also  has  a  considerable  effect  upon 
the  officials  themselves.  Through  these  meetings 
they  are  brought  into  touch  with  men,  who,  like 
themselves,  are  administering  Labor  Laws  in 
nearly  all  the  chief  industrial  countries  of  the 
world.  They  discuss  the  technique  of  Labor 
Legislation  with  fellow  administrator  experts  and 
with  unofficial  experts  and  labor  men.  They 
learn  of  the  experiments  in  State  regulation,  its 
successes  and  failures,  throughout  the  world;  in  a 
word,  their  experience  and  their  outlook  are  to 
some  extent  internationalized.  In  the  modern 
State,  the  official  who  is  high  up  in  a  Government 
office  can  influence  legislation  as  well  as  adminis- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  303 

tration.  The  effect  of  the  internationalization  of 
the  outlook  and  experience  of  the  official  is  clearly 
observable  in  the  history  of  Labor  Legislation  and 
Administration  in  the  several  countries.  There 
has  been  a  notable  tendency  in  recent  years  to- 
wards unification  quite  apart  from  the  international 
conventions.  It  is  merely  a  process  of  one  State 
learning  from  the  experience  of  another,  and  it 
frequently  originates  from  the — sometimes  uncon- 
sciously— internationalized  official.  But,  in  any 
case,  the  result  is  the  same  cosmopolitan  legislation. 
But  this  internationalization  of  the  mind  and 
aims  and  experience  is  not  confined  to  the  officials : 
it  is  even  more  observable  in  the  members  of  the 
Association.  And  this  helps  to  form  an  inter- 
national rather  than  a  national  public  opinion  on 
Labor  Legislation.  And  so  in  each  different  coun- 
try we  find  the  pioneers  in  this  legislation  working 
for  the  same  objects.  A  very  good  example  of 
this  process  is  referred  to  by  Miss  Constance 
Smith.  Minimum  rates  of  wages  have,  as  we  saw, 
been  resisted  because  of  "international  competi- 
tion." For  the  last  eight  years  State  regulation 
of  minimum  wages  has  been  discussed  and  studied 
by  the  Association.  At  first  the  differences  in 
national  conditions  of  industry  and  life  produced 
the  most  decided  differences  of  opinion  among  the 
representatives  of  the  different  sections,  and  in 
"  1906  ...  a  few  daring  delegates  met  in  corners 
and  whispered  under  their  breath  the  words 
'Wages  Board."  Yet,  in  1912  "a  two-day  con- 
ference on  the  legal  minimum  wage  preceded  the 


304  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

meeting  of  the  Association,  and  a  whole  sheaf  of 
minimum  wage  bills  introduced  by  private  mem- 
bers into  the  Chambers  of  different  countries  was 
before  the  delegates,  together  with  an  official 
measure  of  the  French  Government."  "To  watch 
this  change  of  attitude,"  writes  Miss  Smith,  "was 
to  see  international  thought  in  the  making.  .  .  . 
The  remarkable  advance  towards  definite  action 
on  the  part  of  the  State  in  relation  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  minimum  rates  for  home  workers  which 
took  place  between  1906  and  1913  could  not  have 
been  achieved  in  so  short  a  time  but  for  the  labors 
of  certain  voluntary  associations,  led  by  men  of 
insight,  candor,  and  indefatigable  devotion." 

C. — Other  Examples 

Several  other  examples  of  cosmopolitan  legisla- 
tion could  be  given.  Some,  of  course,  have  already 
been  dealt  with  in  Chapter  III,  because  the  uni- 
fication of  administration  which  was  the  main  ob- 
ject of  international  agreement  could  in  some  cases 
only  be  carried  out  by  some  unification  of  national 
laws.  I  propose,  however,  to  deal  very  shortly 
with  only  two  other  examples. 

The  first  is  the  question  of  international  copy- 
right. The  question  is  particularly  interesting  be- 
cause here  we  see  International  Government 
creeping  into  a  department  of  life  very  different 
from  those  which  we  have  hitherto  been  consider- 
ing. The  statesman  of  ancient  Athens  would 
have  counted  art  and  literature  and  music  among 
the  most  vital  of  national  interests  to  be  pro- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  305 

tected  and  encouraged  by  the  State;  but  no  one 
in  a  modern  State  imagines  that  the  artist  or  his 
art  can  affect  or  be  affected  by  anything  which 
could  remotely  resemble  such  national  interests  as 
those  of  prestige,  diplomatists,  finance,  industry, 
and  commerce.  But  here  again  human  beings 
have  proceeded  to  develop  their  lives  with  little 
heed  to  their  own  theories  and  beliefs  as  to  the 
independence  of  States  and  the  hierarchy  of  na- 
tional interests.  For  instance,  they  read  and  they 
write  books  without  reference  to  these  theories 
and  beliefs,  and  the  change  in  the  world's  ways 
which  we  have  noticed  in  so  many  directions  dur- 
ing the  last  century  extended  to  the  reading  and 
the  writing  of  books.  First  there  was  the  enor- 
mous increase  in  readers  and  writers,  and  litera- 
ture became  not  only  an  art,  but  a  profession 
which  might  be  extremely  lucrative.  Then  the 
literary  and  artistic  product  came  within  the  orbit 
of  national  legislation.  From  the  earliest  times, 
for  example,  the  Common  Law  of  England  had 
given  to  the  author  the  exclusive  right  to  his  own 
writings,  and  as  early  as  1710  a  Statute  assured 
him  the  exclusive  right  of  printing  his  works  for 
twenty-one  years.  Until  the  nineteenth  century, 
owing  to  the  limited  number  of  readers  and  writers 
and  the  lack  of  international  intercourse,  the  prob- 
lem of  literary  and  artistic  property  necessarily 
remained  a  national  one.  But  as  soon  as  the 
number  of  a  people  who  could  and  would  read 
books  began  to  be  numbered  by  thousands  instead 
of  hundreds,  and  as  soon  as  the  material  and  im- 


306  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

material  barriers  between  nations  began  to  break 
down  and  thousands  of  people  in  one  country 
would  take  an  interest  in  the  thought  and  art  and 
literature  of  other  countries,  the  problem  became 
an  international  one. 

The  problem,  of  course,  consisted  in  the  ques- 
tion of  the  property  rights  in  works  produced  by 
foreigners  and  outside  the  national  jurisdiction. 
Originally  practically  everywhere  it  was  settled  on 
purely  national  lines.  The  author,  for  instance,  of 
a  French  book  published  in  France  had  no  property 
rights  in  it  in  the  United  States.  But  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  this  extremely  "Nationalist" 
solution  did  not  safeguard  even  so  insignificant  a 
national  interest  as  literature.  For  in  a  book 
compiled  by  the  Secretary  of  the  American  Pub- 
lishers' Copyright  League  in  1896  *  we  find  the 
author  complaining  that  the  fact  that  the  English 
author  could  not  obtain  copyright  of  his  books  in 
America  was  harming  the  American  publisher,  the 
American  author,  and  the  American  reading  public. 
The  publishing  of  an  English  work  was  for  the 
publisher  merely  a  scramble  to  be  first  in  the  field. 
The  American  author  was  hit,  because  the  pub- 
lisher was  not  going  to  pay  him  a  fair  price  for  a 
book  when  he  could  get  much  the  same  kind  of 
book  from  an  English  author  and  pay  the  English- 
man nothing.  The  American  reader  gained  noth- 
ing except  cheap  paper-covered  reprints  of  English 
novels,  because  the  American  publisher  could  not 


*  The  Question  of  Copyright,  by  Geo.  Haven  Putnam.     1896. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  307 

take  the  risk  of  publishing  the  better-class  foreign 
works  when  he  knew  that  if  any  of  them  began  to 
be  successful  he  would  immediately  be  subjected 
to  the  competition  of  half-a-dozen  other  American 
publishers. 

Thus  it  was  that  everywhere  in  the  nineteenth 
century  the  necessity  of  some  form  of  international 
copyright  began  to  be  realized.  The  problem  was 
complicated  by  the  variation  in  the  different 
national  copyright  laws.  The  first  movement  for 
an  international  agreement  and  a  unification  of 
national  laws  came,  as  I  remarked  in  a  previous 
chapter,  in  1878  from  the  International  Associa- 
tion founded  by  Victor  Hugo.  From  the  earliest 
times  there  were  on  the  subject  two  schools  of 
thought,  one  in  favor  of  complete  unification  of 
the  laws  of  copyright,  and  the  other  in  favor  of 
assuring  to  the  foreign  author  uniformity  of  rights. 
When  in  1886,  after  several  diplomatic  conferences, 
an  international  treaty  was  signed  and  an  inter- 
national Union  of  States  formed,  it  was  the  latter 
school  which  triumphed.  The  Union  which  estab- 
lishes international  copyright  is  now  governed  by 
the  Convention  of  1908,  and  is  composed  of  fifteen 
States.  The  Convention  results  in  a  partial  uni- 
fication of  the  copyright  laws  of  the  several  States, 
for  it  assures  to  foreign  authors  the  protection,  in 
every  country  within  the  Union,  which  the  law  of 
that  country  gives  to  its  own  authors.  This  has 
necessitated  in  many  countries  the  codification  and 
alteration  of  the  national  law,  e.  g.,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  British  Acts  of  1886  and  1911. 


308 


Certain  States  are  not  in  this  Union — for  in- 
stance, Austria  and  the  United  States — but  even 
they  have  found  it  necessary  to  conclude  separate 
conventions  giving  a  certain  measure  of  reciprocity 
and  to  alter  their  national  laws  accordingly.*  It 
is  unnecessary  to  say  more  upon  the  forces  making 
for  this  cosmopolitan  legislation,  and  the  relation 
of  national  interests  to  it,  except  in  one  particular. 
The  United  States  is  prevented  from  becoming  a 
member  of  the  Union  by  the  retention  of  what  is 
called  the  "manufacturing  clause"  in  their  Act. 
According  to  Section  15  of  the  Act  of  1911,  books 
for  which  protection  is  sought  "shall  be  printed 
from  type  set  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States."  The  best  comment  on  this  provision  is 
that  of  Leon  Poinsard,  quoted  by  Professor 
Reinsch:  "The  United  States,  in  fact,  subordinates 
the  primordial  right  of  authors  to  the  narrow  in- 
terest of  American  printers  and  their  employers." 
Here  again,  therefore,  we  see  the  interests  of  a 
single  very  small  group  identified  with  national 
interests — and  the  fact  is  worthy  of  note,  because 
in  a  report  of  a  Sub-Committee  appointed  by  the 
British  Government  during  the  war  to  report  on 
British  trade  after  the  war  we  read:  "As  regards 
copyright,  the  most  important  suggestion  made 
to  us  was  by  the  representatives  of  the  printing 
trade  to  the  effect  that  the  United  Kingdom  Copy- 
right Law  should  be  brought  into  line  with  that 
of  the  United  States;  at  present  printed  works  to 


*  E.  g.,  the  United  States  Copyright  Acts  of  1891  and  1911. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  309 

be  copyrighted  in  both  countries  have  to  be  pro- 
duced in  the  United  States  for  the  purposes  of 
copyright  there,  and  consequently  have  to  be 
manufactured  in  the  United  States,  wholly  or  in 
part,  even  if  for  sale  in  this  country."  And  the 
Sub-Committee  recommends  that  the  United  King- 
dom Copyright  Law  should  be  brought  into  line 
with  that  of  the  United  States,  apparently  on  the 
assumption  that  the  only  national  interest  involved 
in  literature  is  the  interest  of  printers,  for  the  only 
evidence  on  the  subject  which  they  appear  to  have 
taken  was  that  of  the  printers! 

The  question  of  industrial  property,  i.  <?.,  trade- 
marks and  patents,  is  in  many  respects  similar  to 
that  of  literary  and  artistic  property,  and  a  similar 
international  problem  has  arisen.  It  has  been 
solved  partially  in  a  similar  way.  In  1883  a  con- 
vention was  signed  by  eleven  States  establishing 
an  International  Union  of  Industrial  Property  with 
an  International  Bureau.  This  Union  has  effected 
a  partial  unification  of  patent  and  trade-mark 
laws,  for  it  assures  to  the  citizens  of  any  State 
within  the  Union  the  advantages  and  protection 
in  any  other  State  which  the  latter  accords  by  its 
laws  to  its  own  nationals.  Professor  Reinsch  calls 
this  an  administrative  arrangement,  and  in  a  sense, 
of  course,  it  is,  but  it  is  also  a  partial  unification 
of  national  laws,  for  the  first  effect  of  the  conven- 
tion is  that  every  State  has  to  treat  the  foreigner 
in  the  same  way  in  its  patent  laws.  As  in  so  many 
other  cases,  this  cosmopolitan  legislation  neces- 
sarily produces  international  administration,  and 


310  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  work  of  the  International  Bureau  at  Berne  is 
a  most  interesting  example  of  such  administration. 
A  certain  number  of  the  States  in  the  Union,  by  a 
subsidiary  agreement,  have  made  the  Bureau  a 
true  international  registry  of  trade-marks,  and  a 
trade-mark  registered  there  arid  in  one  of  those 
States  is  protected  in  each  of  the  others.  It  may 
be  mentioned  that,  between  1893  and  1911,  11,684 
trade-marks  were  registered  at  the  International 
Registry,  of  which  over  6,000  were  French. 


CHAPTER  V 

INTERNATIONAL  SOCIETY  AND  INTERNATIONAL 
STANDARDS 

SO  far,  in  dealing  with  International  Govern- 
ment, we  have  been  examining  cases  in  which 
State  Government,  represented  either  by  Leg- 
islation or  Administration,  is  concerned.  It  is  true 
that  government  through  voluntary  associations 
of  the  individual  citizens  of  several  States  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  frequently  a  most  valuable  instrument 
for  establishing  the  internationalization  of  admin- 
istration or  the  cosmopolitanization  of  law  which 
the  ever-increasing  international  interests  of  mod- 
ern life  require.  I  now,  however,  propose  to  pass 
altogether  out  of  the  regions  of  States,  Powers,  and 
Principalities  into  that  of-  voluntary  associations 
of  individuals  and  groups  of  individuals  of  different 
States.  I  hope  to  show  that  in  a  large  number  of 
directions  these  associations  have  elaborated  organs 
and  systems  of  International  Government,  and 
that  even  a  brief  review  of  this  novel  social  fabric 
will  throw  much  light  upon  the  future  of  inter- 
national organization  and  its  relation  to  national 
interests. 

The  essence  of  government  is  organized  regula- 
tion of  relations  within  a  community.  I  have  had 
already  again  and  again  to  refer  to  the  sudden, 

3" 


312 


enormous  increase  of  international  relations  during 
the  nineteenth  century  in  that  largest  of  all  human 
communities,  the  world.  Wherever  the  relations 
within  a  community  become  many  and  compli- 
cated, the  only  alternative  to  anarchy  is  govern- 
ment, or  the  organized  regulation  of  those  rela- 
tions; and  in  the  civilized  world  government  is, 
or  at  least  should  be,  organized  regulation  of  re- 
lations based  upon  agreement  between  individuals 
or  groups  of  individuals.  And  State  Government 
is  everywhere  in  that  world  insufficient  for  the 
manifold  relations  of  the  manifold  groups  into 
which  our  society  divides  and  subdivides  itself. 
This  is  well  recognized  in  individual  States,  where 
the  development  and  working  of  voluntary  asso- 
ciations, such  as  churches,  trade  unions,  associa- 
tions of  employers,  joint  stock  companies,  clubs, 
etc.,  have  been  studied  and  traced.  All  these 
bodies  are  organs  of  government,  and  therefore 
combine  with  the  State  organs  to  regulate  the 
relations  of  citizens.  The  whole  problem  of  in- 
ternational government,  and  therefore  of  the  pre- 
vention of  war,  consists  in  the  elaboration  of  a 
similar  organized  regulation  of  international  rela- 
tions. In  this  chapter  I  shall  examine  the  growth 
and  possibilities  of  this  kind  of  organization  in 
international  society,  omitting  State  organization, 
which  has  already  been  dealt  with,  and  certain 
industrial  and  commercial  organizations,  which 
will  more  conveniently  be  treated  in  a  separate 
chapter. 
The  outstanding  fact  is  that  in  every  depart- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  313 

ment  of  life  society  has  become  international; 
that  is  to  say,  the  relations  between  individuals 
and  groups  in  the  different  nations  are  many,  and 
the  human  interests  involved,  the  broad  and  the 
deep  interests,  are  not  conflicting,  but  the  same 
from  nation  to  nation.  I  propose  to  take  various 
departments  of  life  and  to  trace  briefly  the  need 
and  the  beginnings  of  organized  regulation  of  these 
international  relations  which  belong  to  them. 

The  simplest  and  the  most  obvious  of  such  de- 
partments is  science.  It  is  a  commonplace  that 
science  is  international,  but  what  is  not  often 
realized  is  that  though  the  interests  of  science  are 
so  obviously  international,  they  cannot  be  ade- 
quately served  without  organized  regulation;  in 
other  words,  International  Government.  And  al- 
ready the  application  of  International  Govern- 
ment to  science  has  gone  very  far,  and  has  been 
eminently  successful.  In  the  first  place,  scientific 
progress  has  depended  and  must  continue  to  de- 
pend upon  the  interchange  of  knowledge  and  dis- 
coveries of  scientific  workers,  not  in  the  small 
geographical  areas  called  States,  but  over  the 
whole  world.  A  vast  international  organization 
has  already  grown  up  to  meet  this  international 
need.  There  is  hardly  a  branch  of  science  for 
which  there  is  not  a  voluntary  international  asso- 
ciation, the  object  of  which  is,  by  publications 
and  discussions  in  periodic  congresses,  to  break 
down  the  barriers  of  national  frontiers  and  lan- 
guage which  impede  the  exchange  of  knowledge 
and  the  progress  of  science. 
22 


314  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

And  in  almost  every  case  it  is  the  leading  men 
in  all  the  different  countries  who  are  members  of 
and  take  an  active  part  in  the  proceedings  of  these 
associations.  To  attempt  to  show  in  detail  how 
this  has  resulted  in  the  rapid  internationalization 
of  the  different  branches  of  science  would  require 
many  volumes:  it  would,  in  fact,  necessitate  the 
writing  a  complete  history  of  science  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  from  Mathematics  and  Psychical 
Research  to  Astronomy  and  Meteorology;  it  must, 
therefore,  suffice  to  take  a  single  example  and  show 
from  it  how  this  process  has  worked.  To  no  part 
of  science  has  this  form  of  organization  been  more 
completely  applied  than  to  the  medical  sciences. 
For  every  subdivision  of  the  art  and  science  of 
medicine  there  is  an  international  society,  associa- 
tion, or  congress.  Here  is  a  list  of  a  few  taken 
at  random  from  the  pages  of  the  review  La  Fie 
Internationale: — Occupational  Diseases,  Medical 
Electrology  and  Radiology,  Tuberculosis,  Den- 
tistry, Veterinary  Surgery,  Surgery,  Psychology 
and  Psychotherapy,  Mouth  and  Teeth,  Rhino- 
Laryngology,  Thalasstherapie,  Otology,  Compara- 
tive Pathology,  Physiology,  Anatomy,  Neurology 
and  Psychiatry,  Embryology.  There  have  been 
two  important  results.  In  the  first  place,  the 
complication  of  international  structure  has  called 
for  and  produced  some  organization  and  regulation 
of  its  parts.  Several  of  the  international  medical 
Congresses  overlap,  and  the  needof  some  centralizing 
and  controlling  body  has  become  apparent.  This 
need  has  to  some  extent  been  met  by  the  formation 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  315 

of  a  Permanent  International  Commission  of  Inter- 
national Congresses  of  Medicine.  Secondly,  this 
international  organization  has  had  an  enormous 
effect  upon  the  science  itself.  Not  only  are  the 
leading  investigators  in  each  country  kept  aware 
through  the  congresses  and  associations  of  what  is 
being  done  elsewhere,  but  medical  treatment  right 
down  the  scale  of  investigator,  specialist,  and  gen- 
eral practitioner  is  internationalized.  One  exam- 
ple alone  will  suffice.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  for 
instance,  that  the  discussion  of  the  Freudian  the- 
ories and  methods  by  the  leading  alienists  at  an 
international  medical  congress  not  only  was  of 
immense  value  in  showing  the  weak  and  the  strong 
points  in  the  theory  and  methods,  but  for  the  first 
time  brought  accurate  knowledge  of  the  treatment 
devised  by  this  Austrian  physician  to  a  large  num- 
ber of  medical  practitioners  of  other  countries. 
The  result  has  been  an  immediate  increase  in  the 
use  of  Freudian  methods,  particularly  in  this 
country. 

This  kind  of  association  is  a  rather  primitive 
form  of  organization,  the  main  object  of  which 
remains  to  spread  scientific  knowledge  across  the 
national  frontiers.  A  second  step  has,  however, 
been  taken  by  certain  associations  to  organize 
internationally  scientific  research  and  to  subject 
it  to  a  more  elaborate  International  Government. 
Of  such  associations  one  of  the  most  influential 
is  the  International  Association  of  Academies, 
founded  in  1899.  It  consists  of  all  the  great  na- 
tional scientific  Academies — it  now  numbers  22 


316  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

members — and  its  work  may  be  best  defined  by 
its  own  statutes:  "To  prepare  or  initiate  scientific 
works,  and  to  facilitate  scientific  relations  between 
countries."  In  other  words,  it  aims  at  organizing 
scientific  work  internationally  which  cannot  be 
adequately  carried  on  on  a  national  basis.  For 
instance,  one  of  the  things  which  hampers  scien- 
tific progress  is  the  variation  in  national  scientific 
standards.  The  need  for  the  unification  of  stand- 
ards in  science  is  as  pressing  as  the  need  of  uni- 
fication of  commercial  laws  in  commerce.  And  so 
we  find  that  one  of  the  first  things  that  this  Inter- 
national Association  took  up  was  the  unification 
of  a  standard,  i.  e.,  it  appointed  an  international 
commission  to  consider  the  question  of  unification 
of  standards  of  color.  Again,  it  appointed  an  in- 
ternational commission  on  the  calendar,  and  it 
passed  a  resolution  asking  Governments  to  adhere 
to  the  draft  Convention  elaborated  by  the  Paris 
International  Conference  on  Time  of  1912,  a  con- 
vention which  would  result  in  the  unification  of 
national  systems  of  time  and  the  establishment 
of  A  Permanent  Government  International  Com- 
mission on  Time.*  It  is  also  a  sign  of  the  need 
for  and  the  growth  of  a  new  international  struc- 


*  It  is  significant  that  here  we  find  the  leading  body  of  scientific  men 
in  the  different  countries  demanding  the  State  "internationalization"  of 
Time  as  being  in  the  interests  of  science,  while  the  leading  business  men 
are  demanding  precisely  the  same  thing  as  being  in  the  interests  of  com- 
merce. The  fifth  International  Congress  of  Chambers  of  Commerce,  in 
which  nearly  all  the  chief  chambers  of  commerce  of  thirty  different  coun- 
tries are  represented,  passed  a  resolution  asking  for  a  diplomatic  conference 
to  establish  a  fixed  international  calendar. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  317 

ture  that  one  resolution  of  this  Association  recom- 
mends that  it  should  be  consulted  by  Govern- 
ments before  they  take  part  in  any  new  Inter- 
national Scientific  Association.  There  can  be  no 
question,  when  one  considers  the  status  of  the 
members  of  this  Association,  that  its  request  is 
not  unreasonable,  and  if  it  is  complied  with,  we 
shall  have  in  this  International  Association  a 
supernational  scientific  body  bearing  the  same  re- 
lation to  the  community  of  States  and  inter- 
national society  as,  for  instance,  the  Royal  So- 
ciety bears  within  the  national  boundaries  to  the 
British  Government  and  the  British  people. 

There  are  some  sciences  in  which  progress  is 
particularly  slow  and  necessarily  circumscribed 
unless  it  can  be  organized  internationally,  and  it 
is  in  these  that  the  most  advanced  forms  of  inter- 
national organization  can  be  observed.  The  most 
obvious  example  is  Astronomy,  for  here  inter- 
national co-operation  between  observers  and  ob- 
servatories is  often  a  necessity,  and  therefore  a 
unification  of  methods  of  work  and  observation 
has  to  be  organized.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising 
to  find  a  large  number  of  International  Astro- 
nomical Associations.  There  is,  first,  the  Central 
Bureau  of  Astronomical  Telegrams,  created  at 
Kiel  in  1882,  which  receives  and  transmits  astro- 
nomic news  from  and  to  affiliated  observatories. 
Then  there  is  the  International  Union  for  Co- 
operation in  Solar  Research,  founded  in  1904,  to 
which  thirteen  countries  belong;  it  has  seven 
international  commissions  for  determining  inter- 


318  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

national  standards  of  measurement,  etc.  There 
is  an  International  Committee  for  the  Execution 
of  the  Photographic  Map  of  the  Sky;  all  the  great 
observatories  are  represented  on  the  committee 
and  are  co-operating  in  the  execution  of  the  map: 
a  portion  of  the  sky  is  assigned  to  each  observa- 
tory, uniform  methods  of  work  are  determined  by 
the  committee,  and  the  complete  uniform  map 
will  be  completed  by  1925.  Finally,  there  met  in 
1911  a  Congres  Internationale  des  Ephemerides 
astronomiques,  at  which  were  the  directors  of  ten 
observatories  and  of  Astronomical  Almanacks  of 
various  countries.  This  congress  passed  resolu- 
tions of  a  highly  technical  and  detailed  nature, 
the  result  of  which  is  to  unify  methods  of  work 
and  observation. 

The  interests  involved  in  science  are  obviously 
international.  The  international  organization  is 
primarily  directed  to  forward  those  interests,  but 
in  so  scientific  an  age  as  the  present  it  necessarily 
has  the  indirect  effect  of  internationalizing  society, 
of  breaking  down  peculiar  national  habits  and  cus- 
toms. The  importance  of  this  operation  cannot 
be  exaggerated,  because  it  is  where  nations  repre- 
sent different  levels  of  "culture"  and  are  yet  in 
intimate  and  continual  relationship,  that  the  diffi- 
culties of  applying  government  to  their  relations 
are  most  formidable.  When  one  turns  from  science 
to  other  departments  of  life,  one  sees  in  the  organi- 
zation and  government  of  voluntary  associations 
even  more  clearly  the  beginnings  of  an  organized 
process  of  internationalizing  society  and  the  growth 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  319 

of  international  social  tissue  which,  if  consciously 
developed  and  used,  might  perform  the  functions 
in  the  wider  community  of  nations  which  are  per- 
formed in  the  community  of  a  nation  by  similar 
and  older  institutions. 

We  have  already  seen  in  the  International  Asso- 
ciation for  Labor  Legislation  how  an  association 
of  this  kind  tends  to  internationalize  the  ideals  and 
objects  of  those  interested  in  a  particular  depart- 
ment of  life.  The  whole  vast  accumulation  of 
International  Associations  which  are  concerned 
with  social  reforms,  or  what  are  sometimes  called 
on  the  Continent  the  Social  Sciences,  are  every- 
where producing  the  same  effects.  Thus,  inter- 
national educational  associations  and  congresses 
are  very  numerous,  and  they  unite  in  a  single  body 
the  pure  social  reformer,  the  practical  teacher,  the 
expert,  and  the  administrator.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  organization  has  contributed  to  a 
unification  of  educational  methods  in  Europe. 

And  if  one  turns  to  very  different  groups  of 
associations  one  finds  a  similar  process  at  work. 
Many  of  the  professional  associations  have  had  the 
effect  of  internationalizing  professional  methods. 
The  decisions  of  an  international  congress  have, 
for  instance,  resulted  in  the  internationalization 
of  medical  nomenclature,  while  the  work  of  an 
international  actuarial  association  has  caused  the 
adoption  of  British  actuarial  methods  throughout 
the  world. 

In  all  these  examples,  it  will  be  observed,  the 
process  is  one  of  unification.  Now,  it  is  remark- 


320  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

able  that  Government  in  civilized  communities 
tends  more  and  more  to  concern  itself  with  unifi- 
cations. In  national  communities,  for  instance, 
the  tendency  has  been  to  enlarge  the  area  of  uni- 
formity of  law,  to  unify  customs  regulations  and 
taxes  generally,  education,  trade  union  structure 
and  regulations,  industrial  and  financial  and  com- 
mercial organization.  It  is  more  than  doubtful 
whether  this  passion  for  uniformity  of  government 
and  organization  and  regulation  produces  the  good 
results  that  human  beings  seem  to  expect  of  it, 
whether,  in  fact,  diversity  is  not  as  desirable  in 
certain  departments  of  life  as  uniformity  in  others. 
It  by  no  means  follows  that  because  uniformity  of 
customs  regulations  in  Northumberland  and  Corn- 
wall is  convenient,  therefore  precisely  the  same 
educational  system  will  produce  the  best  results 
in  the  primary  schools  of  these  two  counties. 
However,  to  apply  reason  to  practical  affairs  or  to 
bring  communal  conduct  into  any  kind  of  touch 
with  general  principles  is  so  unpopular,  and  has 
so  often  been  condemned  by  men  of  affairs,  that 
this  blind  passion  for  uniformity  will  certainly 
continue  to  be  a  leading  characteristic  in  the 
regulation  of  human  society  for  many  years  to 
come.  And  this  much  can  at  least  be  said  for  it, 
that  where  society  is  as  highly  organized  and  as 
interdependent  as  it  is  in  Europe,  a  certain  degree 
of  uniformity,  obtained  by  organization  and  regu- 
lation, is  a  necessity  in  many  departments  of  life. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  forms  of  unification 
is  what  may  be  called  organized  standardization. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  321 

In  every  direction  to-day  we  find  uniform  stand- 
ards being  set  up  almost  always  as  the  result  of 
agreement  obtained  through  large  organizations. 
The  ordinary  human  being  has  to  live  his  life 
according  to  standards  to  a  far  greater  degree 
than  he  is  aware  of.  For  instance,  all  industrial 
production  is  becoming  daily  more  and  more 
standardized;  all  the  different  parts  of  articles  of 
common  use,  from  bicycles  to  houses,  are  coming 
to  be  produced  according  to  fixed  standards 
arrived  at  by  agreement  between  associations  of 
producers  or  experts.  But  it  is  significant  that  in 
the  last  thirty  years  the  tendency  towards  inter- 
national standardization  of  this  kind  has  become 
very  marked,  and  despite  the  delicate  questions 
of  national  pride  and  prejudice  involved,  little 
difficulty  has  been  experienced  in  establishing  in- 
ternational standards  through  international  asso- 
ciations. I  propose  to  give  a  few  examples  of  this 
kind  of  International  Government. 

Of  all  standards  the  most  important  for  human 
progress  is  the  scientific  standard.  Science,  and, 
through  science,  production  and  commerce,  are 
hampered  by  the  absence  of  accurately  deter- 
mined scientific  standards  or  by  their  variation  in 
different  countries.  We  have  already  had  to  re- 
fer to  the  determination  and  establishment  of 
some  scientific  standards,  e.  g.,  of  color.  But  the 
most  noteworthy  achievement  in  this  direction  is 
the  work  of  the  International  Electro-technical 
Institute  and  the  International  Congresses  of 
Electricians.  The  electrician  is  faced  with  two 


322  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

problems,  one  purely  scientific,  the  other  partly 
scientific  and  partly  industrial.*  In  the  first 
place,  he  requires  scientific  units  to  express,  e.  g., 
resistances  to  electric  current  or  the  power  of  a 
machine.  Hence  arises  the  need  for  scientific 
standards,  and  the  first  problem  of  the  scientist 
is  to  determine  scientifically  and  accurately  these 
standards  and  to  get  them  adopted  internationally. 
But  even  after  this  has  been  done  a  second  prob- 
lem remains.  Electrical  industry  and  engineering 
is  hampered  by  the  difference  of  language  and 
usage  in  the  description  and  specification  of 
materials  and  machines  in  the  different  countries. 
Professor  Thompson  points  out  that  dynamo 
means  an  entirely  different  kind  of  machine  in 
Germany,  France,  and  England.  An  interna- 
tional classification  of  electrical  materials  and 
machines  thus  becomes  an  international  interest 
of  electrical  scientists  and  engineers.  For  a  full 
history  of  how  this  has  been  and  is  being  achieved 
the  reader  must  refer  to  the  article  by  Professor 
Thompson  already  quoted.  The  important  points 
in  that  history  may,  however,  be  briefly  sum- 
marized. In  1 88 1  was  held  the  first  International 
Congress  of  Electricians,  the  delegates  being  ap- 
pointed by  Governments  and  scientific  institu- 
tions. This  Congress  adopted  international  names 
for  certain  electric  units,  such  as  the  ohm  and 
volt,  and  appointed  an  international  commission 
for  determining  the  ohm.  Gradually  all  the  dif- 

*  Vide  Le  But  et  L'CEuvrt  de  la  Commission  Electrotechnique  International*, 
by  Professor  Sylvanus  P.  Thompson,  in  La  Vie  Internationale,  V,  1914. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  323 

ferent  units  were  named  and  determined  inter- 
nationally by  means  of  congresses,  commissions, 
and  organized  interchange  of  visits  between  repre- 
sentatives of  the  laboratories  of  different  countries 
engaged  upon  the  work  of  determination.  Then 
Governmental  conferences,  such  as  that  of  1908, 
met  and  adopted  the  definitions  of  units  so  de- 
termined. Finally,  in  this  country,  Orders  in 
Council  have  given  legislative  force  to  the  deter- 
minations of  these  international  standards.  But 
the  most  remarkable  development  of  organization 
was  the  establishment  of  the  Electro-technical 
Commission,  the  statutes  of  which  were  agreed  to 
in  1906.  This  association,  the  constitution  of 
which  is  extraordinarily  elaborate,  is  composed  of 
National  Electro-technical  Committees,  of  which 
in  1911  there  were  fifteen.  The  National  Com- 
mittees are  appointed  by  Governments  or  tech- 
nical societies.  The  Commission  is  engaged  on 
the  work  of  an  international  classification  of  ma- 
chines and  materials;  in  other  words,  it  is  helping 
to  standardize  the  electrical  machines  and  ma- 
terials for  the  world. 

The  growth  of  industrial  and  commercial  stand- 
ardization has  been  in  recent  years  no  less  re- 
markable than  that  of  scientific  standardization. 
There  are  two  entirely  distinct  tendencies  at  work : 
first,  that  of  producers  to  agree  through  associa- 
tions to  standardize  the  materials  from  which 
commodities  are  produced,  in  order  to  facilitate 
division  of  labor  and  large-scale  production; 
second,  there  is  a  movement  on  the  part  of  the 


324 


consumer,  the  better-class  commercial  man,  and 
the  State  to  fix  a  minimum  standard  of  quality, 
particularly  for  food  commodities.  But  here  again 
the  interests  involved  are  found  to  be  international 
rather  than  narrowly  national.  International 
trade  bulks  so  largely  in  the  minds  of  the  manu- 
facturer and  producer  that  the  motives  which  im- 
pel him  to  accept  industrial  standards  soon  com- 
pel him  to  make  those  standards  international. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  much  easier  to  protect 
the  consumer  by  a  minimum  standard  of  quality, 
if  the  same  standard  is  fixed  in  all  or  most  of  the 
consuming  and  producing  countries.  The  result 
of  this  process  upon  the  lives  of  the  ordinary  man 
and  woman  is  not  often  realized.  Most  people 
still  believe  that  they  live  in  the  houses,  eat  the 
food,  and  consume  commodities  which  they  desire 
to  live  in,  eat,  and  consume,  and  that  the  produc- 
tion of  these  commodities  is  influenced  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  by  that  desire.  But  it  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  true  that  we  live  in  houses,  eat 
food,  and  buy  commodities,  the  materials,  size, 
quality,  etc.,  of  which  have  all  been  fixed  either 
by  the  State  or  by  associations  of  producers  and 
scientific  industrial  experts  according  to  standards. 
And  when  this  form  of  organization  and  govern- 
ment becomes,  as  it  is  becoming,  international,  it 
means  that  the  commodities  produced  for  the 
peoples  of  the  several  nations  conform  to  a  fixed 
type  or  standard. 

It  will  only  be  necessary  to  end  this  chapter 
with  a  few  examples  of  international  organization 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  325 

designed  to  establish  these  kinds  of  international 
standards.  Some  of  the  most  common  are  those 
which  deal  with  international  standards  and 
methods  of  analysis.  For  instance,  it  is  stated 
that  nitrates,  phosphates,  and  nearly  all  fertilizing 
materials  are  now  analyzed  according  to  inter- 
national methods  arrived  at  by  international 
agreement.  The  International  Petrol  Commis- 
sion, a  powerful  association,  consisting  of  sixteen 
national  sections,  financed  by  their  Governments 
or  the  industry  or  both,  has  undertaken  the  task 
of  international  unification  of  methods  of  analysis, 
and  its  decisions  have  been  generally  approved. 
Progress  has  also  been  made  with  international 
standardization  of  food  analysis.  As  a  result  of 
the  Congress  of  Applied  Chemistry  there  was  cre- 
ated in  1903  a  permanent  International  Commission 
for  the  Unification  of  Methods  of  Analyzing  Food 
Commodities.  The  members  of  the  Commission 
belonged  to  twenty  different  countries,  and  it  set  it- 
self the  task  of  preparing  a  Code  alimentaire  Inter- 
nationale to  be  submitted  to  the  Governments.* 


*  In  1910,  an  International  Conference  on  this  subject  was  held,  to 
which  seventeen  States  sent  representatives.  The  Conference  formulated 
a  series  of  rules  as  to  the  methods  of  expressing  analytical  results.  A 
proposal  was  also  made  that  an  International  Office  should  be  established 
to  consider  questions  connected  with  the  unification  of  analytical  methods. 
The  British  aversion  to  international  action  was,  as  usual,  displayed  to 
this  proposal,  but  the  French  Government  was  requested  to  formulate  a 
scheme.  A  second  Conference  was  held  in  1912,  to  which  the  British 
Government  sent  no  delegates.  At  this  Conference  a  Convention  was 
signed  by  seven  States  giving  effect  to  the  rules  drawn  up  at  the  first  Con- 
ference, and  a  second  Convention  dealing  with  the  establishment  of  a 
permanent  International  Office  was  signed  by  five  States,  including  France. 


326  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Another  interesting  association  in  another  sphere 
is  the  International  Association  for  the  Testing  of 
Materials,  which  was  created  in  1895.  Its  object 
is  the  unification  of  methods  of  testing  materials, 
and  it  has  three  sections,  dealing  with  (i)  metals, 
(2)  cements,  stone,  etc.,  (3)  other  products.  It 
consists  of  administrations  and  affiliated  societies 
belonging  to  fifteen  different  countries.  Its  in- 
fluence may  be  gauged  from  the  fact  that  its 
sixth  congress  in  1912  was  attended  by  800  per- 
sons, and  twenty  States  sent  official  representatives. 

Finally,  two  examples  may  be  given  to  show 
the  curious  ramifications  of  this  process  of  organ- 
ized international  standardization.  A  Congress 
Pomologique  has  established  an  international  com- 
mission for  unifying  the  nomenclature  of  apples. 
The  International  Association  of  Agriculture  is 
standardizing  international  breeds  of  chickens. 
It  deals  with  international  exhibitions,  trade, 
standards  of  breed,  etc.,  and  at  the  General  As- 
sembly of  1913  a  resolution  was  passed  that  the 
standards  of  each  country  shall  be  submitted  for 
approval  of  the  Federation,  and  their  ratification 
by  the  Federation  shall  make  them  obligatory  for 
all  other  countries.  In  future,  therefore,  even  our 
chickens  will  be  internationalized. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    INTERNATIONALIZATION    OF    COMMERCE, 
INDUSTRY,    AND    LABOR 

COMMERCE  and  industry  provide  the  most 
remarkable  paradox  of  nationalism.  No  na- 
tional interests  are  represented  as  so  vital  as 
those  of  trade,  and  the  internationalist  is  contin- 
ually being  confuted  as  a  dreamer  by  the  picture 
of  the  bitter,  irreconcilable  competition  of  inter- 
national trade.  And  yet,  in  no  department  of  life 
has  International  Government  been  more  firmly 
or  more  widely  established.  We  have  seen  already 
how  often  the  complicated  network  of  commercial 
and  industrial  relations  between  national  groups 
has  necessitated  the  establishment  of  international 
administration  and  legislation.  In  this  chapter  I 
shall  show  how  often  these  groups  themselves, 
apparently  composed  of  trade  rivals,  have  dis- 
covered that  their  interests  coincide  rather  than 
conflict,  and  that  co-operation  and  organized 
regulation  of  relations  serve  them  better  than 
competition. 

This  is  so  large  a  subject  that  I  cannot  pretend 
to  do  more  than  indicate  in  the  roughest  outline 
some  of  the  more  important  tendencies.  It  is  a 
truism,  for  instance,  that  capital  is  international, 
and  a  study  of  the  international  organization  of 

32? 


328  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

finance  would  be  of  great  interest  to  the  student  of 
International  Government.  Such  a  study  would, 
however,  require  a  volume  to  itself.  When,  how- 
ever, we  turn  from  finance  to  trade  and  industry 
we  find  two  main  tendencies — first,  the  formation 
of  regular  international  associations  of  commercial 
groups,  with  regular  organs  of  International  Gov- 
ernment, to  protect  the  international  interests  of 
the  national  groups;  secondly,  the  application  to 
industry  and  trade  of  various  forms  of  inter- 
national regulation  and  agreement,  the  object  of 
which  always  is  to  regulate  international  compe- 
tition and  to  substitute  for  it  some  form  of  co- 
operation. 

Of  the  first  tendency  I  shall  give  only  one  ex- 
ample, and  that  an  instructive  one.*  The  Baltic 
and  White  Sea  Conference,  which  was  created  in 
1905,  is  an  International  Association  of  the  type 
already  described,  with  a  central  bureau  and  a 
regular  organ  of  government,  and  an  annual  con- 
ference. It  consists  of  the  shipowners  of  eleven 
different  countries  interested  in  shipping  in  the 
North  of  Europe.  It  controls  905  ships  of  1,764,- 
603  tons  out  of  1,816  ships  of  2,988,635  tons 
interested  in  the  trade,  and  only  the  smaller  ship- 
owners have  remained  outside.  It  originated  from 
the  realization  of  owners  that  competition  had 
cut  freights  for  wood  from  the  Baltic  to  next  to 

*  Other  examples  of  great  interest  are  the  International  Congress  of 
Chambers  of  Commerce,  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  the  Inter- 
national Federation  of  Flax  and  Tow  Spinners,  the  International  Federa- 
tion of  Cotton  Manufacturers  and  Spinners,  and  L' Association  Internation- 
ale du  Froid. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  329 

nothing.  The  object  of  the  Association  was  to 
regulate  competition  and  to  fix  a  minimum  freight 
tariff.  It  must  be  admitted  that  a  rather  similar 
attempt  to  regulate  international  competition 
during  a  period  of  contracting  trade  had  failed. 
But  the  Baltic  Conference  was  established  during 
a  time  of  expanding  trade,  and  up  to  the  war  had 
undoubtedly  succeeded  in  its  objects.  The  mem- 
bers meet  in  annual  conference,  and  by  a  majority 
vote  fix  a  minimum  rate  binding  upon  the  mem- 
bers. The  formation  of  the  Conference  was 
certainly  followed  by  a  rise  in  freights. 

The  Baltic  Conference  succeeded  through  a 
regular  organ  of  government  in  limiting  inter- 
national competition  between  capitalist  groups 
and  in  fixing  an  international  minimum  rate.  In 
other  words,  the  shipowners  discovered  that  their 
group  interests  were  international  rather  than 
national,  and  could  best  be  served  by  international 
regulation  and  government  instead  of  by  compe- 
tition. The  same  phenomena  are  observable  in 
every  department  of  industry  and  commerce. 
Everywhere  a  most  striking  tendency  in  recent 
years  has  shown  itself  for  the  capitalist  and  em- 
ploying groups  in  the  different  countries  to  merge 
more  or  less  completely  into  international  trusts 
or  cartels,  or  to  regulate  international  trade  and 
competition  by  elaborate  agreements  between  the 
groups.  The  extent  to  which  this  international 
capitalist  system  of  government  has  developed  is 
not  generally  realized,  and,  indeed,  it  is  by  no 
means  easy,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  inter- 

23 


330  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

national  agreements  are  usually  carefully  kept 
secret,  to  trace  its  ramifications.  Its  tendencies 
may,  however,  be  indicated  best  by  a  few  examples. 

Perhaps  the  best  known  instance  of  internation- 
alization in  industry  is  that  of  the  armament 
firms.  The  Japanese  naval  scandals  and  one  or 
two  other  cases  have  revealed  something  of  its 
ramifications,  but  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
evidence  is  afforded  by  the  list  of  the  "groups" 
included  in  the  international  association,  the 
Union  des  Mines,  which  was  founded  for  the  pur- 
poses of  "economic  co-operation"  in  Morocco  and 
other  parts  of  Africa  in  1907.  The  list  was  pub- 
lished in  UHumanite  of  March,  191 1,  and  is  quoted 
in  Ten  Years  of  Secret  Diplomacy,  by  Mr.  E.  D. 
Morel.  The  association  was  composed  of  "  French, 
German,  British,  Spanish,  Italian,  Austrian,  Bel- 
gian, and  Portuguese  manufacturers,  bankers,  and 
even  political  personages."  The  utopianism  of 
International  Government  and  agreement  is  curi- 
ously shown  by  the  inclusion  within  this  associa- 
tion of  the  Cie.  des  Forges  de  Chatillon-Com- 
mentry  et  Neuves  Maisons,  in  the  French  group; 
Krupps,  the  Metallurgische  Gesellschaft,  of  Frank- 
furt, and  the  Nationalbank  fur  Deutschland  in  the 
German,  and  Mr.  Bonar  Law,  M.P.,  and  the 
Times'  correspondent  at  Tangier  in  the  British. 

Intimately  connected  with  the  internationaliza- 
tion of  armament  firms  is  the  internationalization 
of  the  metal  industries.  Here  we  see  the  two 
tendencies — that  of  the  formation  of  trusts  and 
regulation  by  agreements  between  the  different 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  331 

national  groups — both  at  work.  It  is  extremely 
difficult  to  obtain  information  as  to  the  agree- 
ments, but  much  interesting  information  was  given 
in  a  speech  by  a  Deputy  in  the  French  Chamber 
in  1913.  He  maintained  that  almost  all  the  metal 
and  allied  industries  were  being  gradually  inter- 
nationalized in  the  sense  that  in  each  case  the 
tendency  is  for  all  the  supply  for  the  whole  world 
to  be  united  in  the  hands  of  one  international 
syndicate,  or  to  be  regulated  by  international 
agreements  between  small  national  groups.  He 
alleged  that  this  had  already  taken  place  in  the 
case  of  iodide,  bismuth,  platinum,  nickel,  lead, 
zinc,  potash,  aluminum,  and  he  gave  facts  to 
prove  his  statement.  Most  of  his  speech  may  be 
read  in  a  number  of  La  Fie  Internationale  for  1914 
(Vol.  V,  No.  I,  page  104),  and  I  will  only  quote 
here  the  facts  applying  to  one  or  two  of  the  in- 
dustries. In  the  case  of  platinum,  for  instance, 
we  see  a  very  good  example  of  international  regu- 
lation through  the  formation  of  a  trust.  Originally 
the  supply  was  in  the  hands  of  two  Russian,  one 
German,  one  French,  and  several  minor  companies. 
It  is  now  completely  internationalized  in  one 
international  trust.  The  same  process  has  been 
taking  place  with  zinc.  On  the  other  hand,  with 
nickel,  bismuth,  and  lead  the  process  has  been 
one  of  dividing  up  the  markets  of  the  world  by 
agreement  between  national  groups.  Thus  the 
supply  of  bismuth  used  to  be  concentrated  in  the 
hands  of  certain  German  and  American  firms;  but 
subsequently,  by  agreement,  these  firms  divided 


332  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

up  the  world  between  them  into  spheres.  Nickel, 
so  far  as  the  European  market  was  concerned, 
used  to  be  controlled  by  Rothschilds,  while  Amer- 
ican firms  controlled  the  American  market :  subse- 
quently the  whole  world  market  was  divided  up 
between  the  two  groups  in  two  spheres. 

The  most  remarkable  instance  of  International 
Government  in  the  metal  industries  has  occurred 
in  connection  with  the  manufacture  of  steel  rails. 
Its  history  has  been  traced  in  some  detail  by  Mr. 
H.  W.  Macrosty.*  In  1883  the  International 
Rail  Syndicate  was  formed,  composed  of  seven- 
teen out  of  eighteen  British  firms,  all  the  German 
firms  except  two,  and  Belgium.  On  the  basis  of 
the  previous  three  years'  trade,  Britain  was 
allotted  66  per  cent,  of  the  business,  Germany  27 
per  cent.,  and  Belgium  7  per  cent.  Orders  were 
to  be  allotted  to  each  country  in  the  same  pro- 
portion, while  each  retained  its  own  domestic 
trade.  "In  each  country  the  individual  works 
were  assessed  according  to  their  capacity,  and 
orders  were  divided  according  to  the  ratio  of  the 
individual  to  the  total  capacity,  adhesion  to  the 
rules  being  secured  by  a  penalty."  Prices  im- 
mediately rose,  and  the  pool  continued  in  exist- 
ence until  1886.  Then  it  dissolved,  and  English 
and  German  manufacturers  substituted  an  agree- 
ment "to  respect  its  each  other's  territory."  In 
1904,  however,  a  far  more  elaborate  agreement 
was  signed,  this  time  between  the  British,  Ger- 


*  The  Trust  Movement  in  British  Industry,  pages  63-66. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  333 

man,  French,  and  Belgian  manufacturers.  "To 
each  country  its  own  territory  was  assigned,  and 
the  export  trade  was  syndicated  for  three  years 
on  the  basis  of  1,300,000  tons  annually,"  at  a 
minimum  price  of  £4  75.  a  ton.  Britain  was 
allotted  53.50  per  cent,  of  the  export  trade,  Ger- 
many 28.83  Per  cent.,  Belgium  17.67  per  cent., 
and  France  4.8  per  cent.,  5.89  per  cent.,  and  6.4 
per  cent,  for  the  three  years.  In  1905  the  Amer- 
ican manufacturers  came  into  the  agreement. 

An  international  organization  of  a  different 
type,  not  uncommon  on  the  Continent,  also  de- 
serves notice.  An  international  kartell  of  glass 
factories  has  been  for  some  years  in  existence. 
In  1913  most  of  the  adhering  manufacturers 
formed  what  was  called  a  Continental  Commer- 
cial Union.  The  object  was  to  unify  the  sale  of 
glass  in  the  markets  of  the  world  by  centralizing 
commercial  services  of  different  factories.  In- 
stead of  each  factory  having  an  agent  in  each 
market,  the  organization  acted  as  a  single  agent 
for  the  sale  of  the  product  of  all  the  factories. 
Thirteen  factories  joined:  five  Belgian,  three  Ger- 
man, three  French,  one  Austrian,  and  one  Dutch. 
The  organization  has  at  its  head  a  Conseil  d'Ad- 
ministration,  which  communicates  through  a  gen- 
eral secretariat  with  the  different  services.  It  is 
divided  into  five  departments:  (i)  Technical, 
with  an  engineer  at  its  head,  (2)  accounts  and 
statistics,  (3)  management  of  sales  in  the  English 
market,  (4)  ditto  French  market,  (5)  ditto  market 
of  other  countries. 


334  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

These  examples  will  serve  to  show  the  attitude 
of  the  capitalist  and  the  manufacturer  to  the 
national  interests  of  commerce  and  industry  and 
to  international  agreement  and  government.  If 
belief  in  social  and  political  internationalism  is 
the  sign  of  the  amiable  crank,  a  belief  in  industrial 
and  capitalist  internationalism  is  the  mark  of  a 
practical  man  of  business.  The  great  capitalists 
and  captains  of  industry  show  by  their  actions 
that  they  are  by  no  means  convinced  that  the 
national  interests  of  commerce  and  industry  are 
best  served  by  international  competition.  It  is 
not  perhaps  a  curious  fact  that  where  international 
government  promotes  the  interests  of  the  strong 
it  is  found  to  be  reasonable  and  practical,  but  so 
often  where  it  would  promote  the  interests  of  the 
weak  it  is  merely  Utopian.  The  trend  of  modern 
industry  is,  as  everyone  knows,  towards  combina- 
tion. The  capitalist  has  been  faced  with  the 
question  of  whether  that  combination  shall  stop 
at  the  national  frontiers.  How  he  has  answered 
the  question  and  why  his  answer  is  what,  it  is 
cannot  be  better  shown  than  by  a  quotation  from 
Mr.  Macrosty,  though  he  is  speaking  only  of  com- 
bination in  this  country: — "The  weakness  of  every 
form  of  combination  in  the  United  Kingdom  is 
due  to  the  free  admission  of  foreign  competition. 
If  that  can  be  removed,  their  strength  is  enor- 
mously increased.  .  .  .  Apart  from  tariffs,  this 
result  may  be  attained  in  various  ways.  All  the 
international  interests  may  be  gathered  up  into 
one  British  company,  as  in  the  case  of  Borax  Con- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  335 

solidated,  or  the  foreign  interests  may  be  partly 
extirpated  by  and  partly  brought  into  alliance 
with  a  British  company,  as  in  the  case  of  J.  and 
P.  Coats,  Limited.  Prices  and  output  may  be 
regulated  in  common,  as  in  the  Nitrate  Combina- 
tion, or  territory  may  be  divided,  as  in  the  Inter- 
national Rail  Syndicate.  Or  while  reserving  cer- 
tain territories  for  individual  exploitation  there 
may  be  co-operation  in  the  development  of  others, 
as  in  the  alliance  of  the  Imperial  Tobacco  Com- 
pany with  the  American  Tobacco  Trust.  In  one 
way  or  another  the  world's  trade  in  rails,  tubes, 
nails,  screws,  sewing-thread,  bleaching  powder, 
borax,  nitrates,  and  tobacco  is  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree  brought  under  international  control,  while 
at  least  till  lately,  dynamite  was  so  controlled, 
and  repeated  efforts  have  been  made  similarly  to 
syndicate  the  whole  steel  industry."* 

From  the  world  of  capital  one  turns  naturally 
to  the  world  of  labor.  Nowhere  has  the  solidarity 
of  international  interests  been  more  clearly  recog- 
nized or  more  passionately  and  idealistically  pro- 
claimed than  among  the  workers  of  the  world. 
Yet  at  first  sight  the  results  of  this  recognition  and 
the  international  working  class  organization  are 
wont  to  provoke  contempt  or  disappointment 
according  to  the  difference  of  outlook  and  prej- 
udice of  the  inquirer.  Nevertheless,  certain  sides 

*The  International  Agreements  signed  by  American,  British,  and  Ger- 
man capitalists,  shipowners,  and  shipbuilders  on  the  formation  of  the 
International  Mercantile  Marine  Company  or  Atlantic  Shipping  Trust 
should  also  be  mentioned. 


336  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  international  labor  movement  deserve  more 
attention  than  is  usually  given  to  them.  I  pro- 
pose here  only  to  say  a  few  words  about  that  side 
of  it,  the  international  trade  union  movement, 
which  ought  in  a  sense  to  be  the  complement  in 
organization  of  the  kind  of  combination  which  we 
have  seen  to  be  so  marked  a  characteristic  of  capital. 
On  paper  the  International  Trade  Union  Move- 
ment is  very  strong.  It  has  a  twofold  organiza- 
tion. There  is  first  the  International  Federation 
of  Trade  Unions,  which  came  into  existence  in 
1901,  under  the  name  of  the  International  Trade 
Union  Secretariat.  The  organization  is  com- 
posed of  National  Federations  affiliated  to  the 
International  Federation.  The  National  Federa- 
tion in  turn  consists  of  individual  trade  unions 
which  elect  to  affiliate  to  it.  In  1912  nineteen 
countries,  including  all  vthose  in  which  the  trade 
union  movement  is  well  developed,  had  national 
federations  affiliated,  and  the  number  of  members 
of  affiliated  unions  was  over  7,000,000.  The  total 
number  of  trade  unionists  in  the  world  is  estimated 
at  15,000,000.  This  form  of  combination  is  based 
solely  upon  the  national  unit:  it  seeks  to  unite  in 
a  national  section  all  the  trade  unions  of  a  coun- 
try, and  then  to  federate  the  national  sections. 
The  second  form  is  based  both  upon  the  nation- 
ality and  the  occupation  of  the  worker.  In  1912 
there  were  thirty-two  international  occupational 
federations  of  workers,  of  which  the  three  largest 
were  the  International  Metal  Workers'  Federation, 
with  a  membership  of  1,100,000;  the  International 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  337 

Federation  of  Transport  Workers,  with  880,000 
members,  and  the  International  Union  of  Wood- 
workers, with  about  400,000  members. 

Such  is  the  skeleton  of  the  international  organ- 
ization of  Labor.  The  question  with  which  I  am 
particularly  concerned  is  the  extent  to  which  it 
has  produced  International  Government,  and  has 
affected  the  national  and  international  interests 
of  Labor  in  its  struggle  with  an  internationalized 
capitalist  system.  The  first  thing  to  be  noted  is 
that  the  main  International  Federation  of  Trade 
Unions  is  of  very  recent  growth,  and  that  it  still 
confines  itself  almost  entirely  to  the  collection  of 
statistics  and  information :  it  is  in  the  occupational 
federations  that  organization  for  the  protection  of 
the  international  interests  of  the  workers  must  be 
sought. 

There  are  three  distinct  ways  in  which  inter- 
national Labor  interests  affect  the  trade  union 
movement.  There  is  the  organization  of  the 
movement  itself,  there  are  the  conditions  of  em- 
ployment with  which  the  organization  is  con- 
cerned, and  there  are  the  methods — particularly 
strikes — by  which  the  organized  workers  seek  to 
obtain  through  these  organizations  particular  con- 
ditions of  employment.  International  relations 
have  affected  each  of  these  three  departments  of 
trade  union  action  and  policy,  and  in  each  case 
the  beginnings  of  international  trade  union  gov- 
ernment have  resulted.  For  instance,  the  ele- 
mentary question  involved  in  organization  is  to 
get  the  individual  worker  into  the  union.  The 


338  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

non-union,  unorganized  worker  is  the  thin  edge  of 
the  wedge  by  which  again  and  again  the  employer 
breaks  down  the  trade  union  standard,  and  em- 
ployer and  employed  are  well  aware  of  this.  The 
revolution  in  communications  has  seriously  affected 
"the  fluidity  of  Labor,"  and  the  introduction  of 
the  foreign  worker,  with  different  standards  of 
life,  is  everywhere  a  practical  problem  for  the 
unions.  In  these  circumstances,  it  is  of  great  im- 
portance, especially  where  trade  union  organiza- 
tion is  highly  developed,  that  the  worker  who 
leaves  his  own  country  to  find  work — temporarily 
or  permanently — in  another  should  immediately 
enter  the  local  union  of  the  latter,  and  should  not 
be  left  to  become  the  tool  of  the  employer  against 
trade  union  conditions.  Nearly  all  the  Inter- 
national Federations  have,  therefore,  concerned 
themselves  with  this  question.  In  many  cases 
the  system  adopted  provides  that  any  member  of 
a  union  affiliated  to  the  Federation,  if  he  goes 
abroad  to  work,  can  join  the  local  affiliated  union 
without  paying  an  entrance  fee.*  This  inter- 
national organization  of  the  trade  union  move- 
ment is  of  very  recent  growth,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  it  will  be  greatly  developed. 
As  to  conditions  of  employment,  it  is  extremely 

*  For  instance,  the  rules .  of  the  International  Federation  of  Wood- 
workers provide  that  members  of  every  affiliated  Union  working  abroad 
may  be  admitted  to  the  national  organization  without  entrance  fee.  They 
are  entitled  to  benefits  in  proportion  to  the  contributions  paid  by  them 
to  their  home  organization.  Members  must  have  foreign  traveling  cer- 
tificates from  their  home  Union,  and  are  entitled  to  traveling  money  from 
the  foreign  Union. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  339 

interesting  to  note  how  the  International  Trade 
Union  movement  has  been  forced  already  to  de- 
velop a  system  of  International  Government  and 
regulation  in  order  to  safeguard  national  standards. 
The  industrial  systems  of  the  different  countries 
are  so  interdependent  that  the  conditions  of  em- 
ployment in  one  are  continually  being  influenced 
by  those  in  another.  The  employer  uses  this  fact 
as  a  weapon  against  the  worker's  organization. 
The  result  is  that  the  organized  worker  finds  that 
without  international  organization  he  cannot  safe- 
guard his  conditions.  The  secretariats  of  inter- 
national occupational  federations  have,  therefore, 
in  many  cases  been  forced  to  become  organs  for 
establishing  something  like  an  international  trade 
union  standard.  Examples  taken  from  the  work 
of  one  federation  will  show  the  direction  in  which 
this  development  is  proceeding. 

The  Secretariat  of  the  International  Metal 
Workers'  Federation  is  continually  preventing  the 
undercutting  of  conditions  in  one  country  by 
firms  in  another,  and  also  the  employment  of 
foreign  workers  by  firms  which  do  not  conform  to 
the  trade  union  requirements.  Thus  in  1911  the 
British  Section  was  asked  by  the  silver-workers  of 
Birmingham  whether  a  certain  firm  in  Brussels 
was  a  "fair  firm,"  as  they  were  seeking  workmen 
in  England.  The  information  was  immediately 
obtained  from  the  Belgian  section  and  forwarded 
to  Birmingham.  In  1913  the  men  of  Kugellager- 
fabrik,  Rheinland,  A.G.,  in  Germany,  complained 
that  Hoffman  Manufacturing  Co.,  Chelmsford, 


340 


England,  were  selling  solid  ball-bearings  10  per 
cent,  cheaper  than  they  could  produce,  and  that 
the  cause  was  one  of  wages.  The  list  of  wages  in 
the  two  firms  was  obtained  by  the  Federation  and 
interchanged,  and  the  result  was  a  successful  strike 
in  Chelmsford. 

These  examples  will  prove  that  international 
trade  union  organization  is  already  by  no  means 
without  effect.  But  it  is  natural  that  these  mani- 
festations of  it  have  been  overlooked,  and  atten- 
tion concentrated  upon  its  application  to  the  strike. 
All  the  occupational  federations  and  the  general 
federation  itself  have  concerned  themselves  with 
the  possibility  of  organizing  international  support 
for  national  strikes.  It  is  true  that  these  efforts 
on  the  whole  have  not  had  very  much  result,  and 
the  reason  is  obvious.  The  unions  which  are 
affiliated  to  the  International  Federations  cannot 
afford  to  pay  substantial  subscriptions.  The  Fed- 
erations are,  therefore,  financially  weak,  and  sup- 
port for  a  strike  out  of  their  funds  is  impossible. 
In  consequence,  nearly  all  of  them  have  a  rule  that 
in  cases  of  important  strikes  the  International 
Secretariat  shall  appeal  for  funds  to  the  National 
Sections.  The  method  of  obtaining  funds  is  left 
to  the  National  Section.*  Anyone  who  knows  the 
extreme  difficulty  of  raising  money  in  nearly  all 

*  The  rules  of  some  federations  authorize  special  levies — f.  g.,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  International  Federation  of  Lithographers  can  authorize  a  levy 
for  international  support  of  from  2  to  25  pf.  a  week,  the  total  maximum 
support  not  to  exceed  5,000  marks.  In  1913  the  Metal  Workers'  Federation 
passed  a  resolution  authorizing  special  levies  of  id.  per  member  per  week 
for  six  weeks. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 341 

working-class  movements  will  not  be  surprised 
that  under  these  circumstances  international  finan- 
cial support  for  strikes  is  rarely  possible  on  any 
considerable  scale.* 

Bakounin,  the  father  of  Anarchism,  saw  in  the 
international  organization  of  strike  funds  the 
strongest  weapon  for  destroying  capitalist  society. 
He  preached  this  doctrine  nearly  fifty  years  ago, 
long  before  the  modern  international  organization 
of  the  trade  union  movement  had  begun.  To-day 
it  is  clear  that  the  financial  position  of  the  local 
union  and  of  the  individual  worker  makes  the 
application  of  International  Government  to  strike 
funds  a  matter  of  peculiar  difficulty.  That,  how- 
ever, has  not  and  should  not  blind  trade  unionists 
to  the  fact  that  their  local  and  national  struggles 
against  their  employers  involve  the  international 
interests  of  labor,  and  that  there  are  other  ways 
in  which  international  trade  union  organization 
is  necessary  for  the  protection  of  those  interests. 
The  international  labor  market  is  continually  being 
used  by  employers  as  a  method  of  obtaining  strike- 
breakers or  of  under-cutting  union  rates.  Two 
methods  of  trade  union  organization  have  been 
adopted  by  Labor  to  counteract  this  action  of  the 

*  In  certain  cases  international  appeals  have  brought  in  considerable 
sums.  Thus,  in  the  great  Swedish  General  Strike  of  1909,  which  is  said 
to  have  cost  the  workers  39  million  crowns,  an  international  appeal  was 
made  for  support  through  International  Federations  to  the  trade  unions, 
and  no  less  than  2  million  crowns  was  levied  and  subscribed.  Of  this  over 
a  million  crowns  came  from  Germany.  The  financial  position  of  the  Inter- 
national Federations  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  largest,  the  Metal- 
workers, had  a  revenue  for  the  three  years  ending  1910  of  under  50,000  fr. 
a  year. 


342  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

capitalists,  and  both  admit  of  considerable  elab- 
oration and  extension. 

In  the  first  place,  the  International  Secretariat 
of  National  Trade  Union  Centers  publishes  an 
International  News  Letter,  which  continually 
contains  notices  of  strikes  and  warnings  to  foreign 
workers  to  keep  away  from  places  where  such 
strikes  are  proceeding.  Thus  the  letter  of  De- 
cember 24,  1913,  begins  with  a  heading,  "Copen- 
hagen Closed  for  Dockers,"  gives  an  account  of 
the  dockers'  dispute  in  progress  there,  and  warns 
all  dockers  "to  keep  away  from  Copenhagen."* 
Secondly,  the  occupational  Federations  themselves 
perform  a  similar  function  of  keeping  the  inter- 
national ring  for  Labor.  For  instance,  in  1913 
the  engineers  on  a  certain  vessel  in  Newcastle 
struck.  The  employers  then  sent  on  the  vessel 
to  Rotterdam  to  be  completed  there.  The  Secre- 
tary of  the  British  section  of  the  International 
Metal  Workers'  Federation  was  informed,  and  he 
immediately  communicated  the  facts  to  the  Fed- 

*  A  very  interesting  example  of  the  international  organization  of  Capital, 
producing  an  international  counter-move  on  the  part  of  Labor,  occurs  in 
the  same  letter.  International  "Free  Labor"  Agencies  have  made  their 
appearance  in  recent  years:  they  undertake  to  supply  gangs  of  foreign 
workers  at  fixed  rates  of  pay — which,  curiously  enough,  are  more  often 
than  not  lower  than  Union  rates.  The  International  News  Letter  publishes 
a  "circular"  of  one  of  these  agencies  with  which  Russia  and  East  Europe 
had  been  flooded.  The  circular  announces  that:  "The  General  Agency, 
'The  Transatlantic,'  in  London  has  been  commissioned  to  place  1,500  men 
in  the  following  works: — 'The  Dominion  Steel  Corporation'  and  'Dominion 
Coal  Co.,  Ltd.,'  in  Glace  Bay,  and  the  'Dominion  Iron  and  Steel  Co.,  Ltd.,' 
in  Sydney  and  in  Canada."  Then  follows  a  detailed  list  of  men  required, 
and  the  rates  of  pay.  The  News  Letter  issues  a  warning  that  all  the  rates 
of  pay  and  hours  are  lower  than  the  local  Union  rates. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  343 

eral  Office  at  Stuttgart.  The  Federal  Office  in- 
formed the  Union  at  Rotterdam,  and  the  Union 
officers  sought  out  the  vessel,  and  called  out  the 
men  at  work  on  her. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOME    CONCLUSIONS 

1HAVE  tried  in  the  preceding  chapters  to  trace 
the  strands  of  interests,  government,  and  or- 
ganization which  are  international  in  the  net- 
work of  relations  which  we  vaguely  describe  as  the 
community  of  nations.  The  recording  of  facts, 
whether  boring  or  interesting,  is,  in  my  opinion, 
not  an  end  in  itself,  but  only  a  means  towards 
some  new  vision  or  new  understanding  of  that 
inextricable  error,  the  world.  I  propose,  there- 
fore, to  turn  back  to  Chapter  I,  and  to  consider 
briefly  whether  the  mass  of  facts  which  I  have 
reviewed  since  then  can  give  us  such  a  new  vision 
or  understanding  of  the  problem  there  stated,  the 
relation  of  national  to  international  interests  and 
the  relation  of  both  to  International  Government. 
And  it  will  be  convenient  to  deal  first  with  the 
general  problem  of  International  Government,  and 
afterwards  with  the  special  problem  of  such  gov- 
ernment as  a  means  of  preventing  war. 

If  anyone  who  has  succeeded  in  reading  the 
preceding  chapters  will  attempt  to  rise  above  the 
individual  facts  and  envisage  them  as  a  whole  he 
will,  I  believe,  get  a  vision  of  the  world  somewhat 
different  from  that  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
get  when  looking  at  it  across  our  national  fron- 

344 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  345 

tiers.  We  are  accustomed  to  regard  the  world 
as  neatly  divided  into  compartments  called  States 
or  nations.  The  legislative,  administrative,  and 
judicial  divisions  into  States  appear  to  trace  a 
clear-cut  line;  in  many  places  differences  of  lan- 
guage serve  to  deepen  and  differences  of  customs, 
food,  clothing,  and  ideals  to  broaden  that  line. 
School  books,  statesmen,  diplomatists,  lawyers, 
journalists,  politicians  agree  in  representing  this 
line  as  an  impassable  chasm,  and  the  most  "ad- 
vanced" writers  consider  the  State  or  nation  as 
eternally  the  ultimate  unit  of  communal  organiza- 
tion. Hence  the  rigid  theory  of  the  independence 
and  sovereignty  of  States;  hence  the  idea  that 
internationalism  and  patriotism  are  incompatible; 
hence  the  fanatical  worship  of  the  State,  the  nation, 
or  the  country.*  But  this  vision  of  a  world 
divided  into  isolated  compartments  is  not  a  true 
reflection  of  facts  as  they  exist  in  a  large  portion 
of  the  earth  to-day.  A  modern  State,  in  so  far  as 
it  represents  a  community  of  individuals,  is  not 
an  isolated  independent  unit,  containing  within 
itself  all  that  it  requires  for  its  life  and  their  lives.f 
It  is  in  perpetual  and  intimate  and  intricate  re- 

*  It  may  be  noted  that  many  Englishmen  who  condemn  the  fanatical 
worship  of  the  State  in  some  foreign  countries  seem  to  be  unaware  that 
they  themselves  worship  it  in  the  same  way,  but  under  another  name — 
i.  e.,  my  country. 

t  As  I  write  this,  by  a  curious  coincidence,  I  find  in  a  book  just  pub- 
lished, European  International  Relations,  by  J.  Murray  Macdonald,  M.P., 
words  which  admirably  describe  this  conscious  or  unconscious  attitude  of 
mind  which  has  been  so  disastrously  prevalent  in  Europe.  "Hitherto," 
he  writes,  "each  of  them  (the  nations  of  Europe)  has  been  too  ready  to 
assume  that  its  freedom  and  independence  rested  on  its  own  isolated  power 
24 


346  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

lationship  with  other  States ;  it  cannot  carry  on  the 
work  of  internal  government,  legislative  or  ad- 
ministrative, which  modern  conditions  of  life  re- 
quire, without  continual  co-operation  and  perma- 
nent organs  of  International  Government;  complete 
independence  to-day  is  merely  a  legal  fiction,  and 
if  we  are  to  make  it  a  fact  we  shall  have  to  destroy 
the  international  form  of  society  which  grew  up 
in  the  last  century  and  revert  to  the  national  iso- 
lation of  a  former  age.  So  much  for  the  State. 
As  for  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  we  have 
seen  that  there  is  no  department  of  life  in  which 
their  most  vital  interests  and  relations  are  not 
international  and  have  not  become  so  insistent 
as  to  bring  into  existence  a  whole  network  of  In- 
ternational Government  and  organs  of  government. 
Here  again  you  must  either  sweep  away  these 
international  relations  of  trade,  labor,  science, 
literature,  social  reform,  etc.,  or  you  must  con- 
tinue to  develop  their  organized  regulation  through 
International  Government. 

Now  it  is  clear  that  so  far  as  the  development  of 
internationalized  inter-State  government,  or  an  in- 
ternational authority  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was 
used  in  the  first  part  of  this  book,  is  concerned,  the 
question  of  independence  and  sovereignty  is  of  the 
first  importance.  In  Part  I  the  legislative  power 

of  maintaining  its  life  against  the  others;  and  its  relations  have  been  too 
largely  regulated  by  this  assumption.  Each  has  assumed  that  it  had 
within  itself  all  the  means  necessary  to  a  completely  self-sufficing  life; 
or  that  if  it  had  not  it  had  an  inherent  right,  without  regard  to  other 
nations  or  their  interests,  to  adopt  such  measures  as  might  seem  to  it  ex- 
pedient to  secure  these  means." 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  347 

of  the  Conference  or  Council  was  limited  to  ques- 
tions which  did  not  affect  the  independence  of  the 
Sovereign  State  in  the  strictly  legal  sense,  and  this 
was  done  because,  as  I  pointed  out  then  and  still 
believe,  no  nation  would  at  this  precise  moment  of 
time  consent  to  enter  such  an  authority  under  any 
other  conditions.  But  though  the  sane  man  who 
finds  himself  in  a  world  of  madmen  may  be  wise 
to  act  like  a  lunatic,  there  is  no  call  upon  him  to 
think  like  one;  and  even  if  other  good  Europeans 
compel  us  for  the  moment  to  act  as  if  we  thought 
we  were  independent — and  every  Sovereign  State 
suspended  like  Mohammed's  coffin  in  a  special  inter- 
national vacuum  of  its  own — that  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  actually  think  this  so  if  it  is  not. 
And  the  whole  of  the  first  part  of  this  book  no  less 
than  the  second  proved  that  the  great  stumbling- 
block  to  the  growth  of  international  inter-State 
government  is  the  theory  and  passion  for  inde- 
pendence. 

"Ah,  *  passion'  for  independence,"  the  critic  will 
say;  "so  you  have  at  last  mentioned  that  which 
no  theory  and  no  reason  can  touch,  and  which 
explodes  into  the  air  all  this  nonsense  about  inter- 
national authorities  and  government  and  associa- 
tions for  breeding  international  chickens.  Patriot- 
ism and  nationalism  are  instinctive  passions  of  the 
human  race,  and  there's  an  end  of  it."  But  the 
critic  has,  I  believe,  fallen  into  a  very  common 
politico-philosophical  error.  It  is  extremely  com- 
mon for  people,  when  anyone  proves  that  some- 
thing in  the  world  or  society  is  wrong  and  might 


348  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

with  advantage  be  altered,  to  think  that  all  further 
thought,  argument,  or  action  is  rendered  useless  by 
their  pointing  out  that  unfortunately  all  this  is  due 
to  an  unreasoning  instinct  or  passion  in  the  human 
race.  This  view  implies  the  obviously  false  as- 
sumption that  instincts  are  incapable  of  control, 
of  being  deflected  from  bad  objects  to  good,  by 
reason  and  a  consciousness  of  truth  and  facts. 
The  unreasoning  instinct  and  passion  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  human  race  to  boil  one  another  alive 
because  of  diiferences  of  religious  opinion  was 
certainly  not  abolished  by  an  act  of  God,  and  few 
people  would  be  ready  to  assert  that  its  partial 
suppression  to-day  is  not  in  some  degree  due  to 
the  protests  and  arguments  of  a  minority,  who 
remarked  that  the  desire  to  satisfy  this  instinct 
was  partly  caused  by  a  mistaken  view  as  to  facts 
and  as  to  the  efficacy  of  the  process  of  boiling 
heretics. 

Certainly  the  passion  for  independence  exists, 
and  a  consciousness  of  nationality  and  patriotism 
exists,  and  anyone  who  writes  about  the  future  of 
international  society  and  affects  to  ignore  them 
must  be  very  blind  or  very  stupid.  But  their  ex- 
istence does  not  imply  that  in  their  present  form 
they  are  either  admirable  or  will  continue  so  to 
exist  for  all  eternity.  I  do  not  assert  that  the 
theory  of  and  passion  for  independence  and 
national  interests  as  they  are  taught  to-day  will 
disappear  off  the  face  of  the  earth  any  more  than 
I  assert  that  men  will  cease  to  hold  other  false 
theories  or  to  pervert  other  good  instincts  to  bad 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  349 

uses.  But  I  do  assert  that  the  legal,  political,  and 
diplomatic  theories  of  the  independence  and  sov- 
ereignty of  States  are  illogical  and  the  result  of 
confused  and  timid  thinking,  and  that  the  passion, 
directed  and  controlled  only  by  false  theory,  is 
destructive  of  the  best  things  in  society  which 
mankind  has  so  slowly  and  so  laboriously  ac- 
quired. 

The  problem  of  independence  is  not  peculiar  to 
International  Government;  it  appears  in  every 
kind  of  government.  It  is  part  of  that  old,  stale, 
unsolved  "paradox  of  self-government."  In  every 
community,  from  that  of  a  sewing-club  to  that  of 
nations,  human  beings  still  have  to  learn  how  to 
combine  liberty  with  government:  the  effects  of 
their  failure  to  learn  the  lesson  differ  according  to 
the  size  and  ferocity  of  the  communities:  in  the 
sewing-club  they  may  be  negligible,  among  nations 
they  destroy  the  progress  and  imperil  the  very 
existence  of  man  as  a  species.  For  you  have  only 
to  look  at  men  and  women  with  complete  detach- 
ment for  a  moment — a  very  difficult  thing  to  do 
— to  see  that  they  still  remain  animals  standing 
on  their  hind  legs — and  no  animal,  though  it  does 
stand  on  its  hind  legs  and  wear  trousers,  will  be 
able  to  maintain  itself  indefinitely  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  if  it  persists  in  destroying  itself  with 
high  explosives. 

The  problem  of  independence  and  government 
everywhere  is  to  allow  people  to  manage  their  own 
affairs  without  infringing  the  power  and  desire  of 
other  people  to  manage  their  own  affairs.  In  the 


350  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

international  community  the  desire  to  manage 
one's  own  affairs  in  national  communities  and 
States,  the  desire  for  independence,  the  ties  and 
passions  of  nationality,  will,  of  course,  continue  to 
exist.  That  they  can  be  among  the  noblest  of 
human  feelings  and  instincts  and  productive  of 
great  good  no  sane  man  will  deny.  But  I  claim 
that  in  the  previous  chapters  there  will  be  found 
evidence  that  they  are  not  incompatible  with  a 
highly  organized  system  of  International  Govern- 
ment, and  that  they  do  not  require  for  their  exist- 
ence the  independence  of  government  which  the 
lawyer  and  the  diplomatist  pretend  is  essential  to 
the  independent,  sovereign  State. 

In  the  nineteenth  century,  in  certain  parts  of 
the  world,  we  seemed  to  be  slowly  working  out  a 
rational  system  of  human  government.  The  chief 
characteristic  of  such  a  system  was  that  the  exist- 
ence of  very  large  communities  was  recognized, 
that  the  existence  of  smaller  communities  of  every 
variety  and  kind  within  the  larger  was  recognized, 
that  communities  and  parts  of  communities  were 
to  be  left  to  manage  for  themselves  matters  which 
only  affected  themselves;  but  that,  where  the  re- 
lations of  communities  or  parts  of  a  community 
were  many  and  intricate,  organization  and  organs 
of  government  should  be  provided  for  joint  regu- 
lation. Whenever  an  attempt  is  made  to  put  this 
ideal — for  it  remains  nothing  more  than  an  ideal 
— into  practice,  whether  in  the  British  Empire  or 
a  federation  of  trade  unions,  difficulties  will  occur, 
and  in  theory  any  intelligent  person  could  fill  a 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  351 

large  volume  with  criticisms  and  objections;  yet 
there  is  ample  evidence  that  in  practice,  with  a 
very  moderate  amount  of  good  will  and  good  sense, 
a  workable  system  of  society  and  government  can 
or  could  be  erected  on  this  principle.  And  the 
great  merit  of  such  a  system  is  that  it  consciously 
recognizes  that  where  the  units  of  a  community 
are  through  their  infinite  relations  dependent  upon 
one  another  and  not  independent,  an  organized 
regulation  of  those  relations,  reflecting  that  inter- 
dependence, must  be  provided. 

This,  too,  is  the  first  lesson  which  the  preceding 
chapters  teach.  The  varied  growths  of  interna- 
tional inter-State  Government  and  of  organs  of 
International  Government  show  how  this  organi- 
zation can  be  developed  for  the  community  of 
nations.  In  no  case  can  it  be  argued  that  the 
entry  of  a  nation  into  one  of  these  unions,  even 
where  such  entry  involved  the  limitation  of  its 
administrative  independence,  has  in  any  way  in- 
juriously affected  its  real  and  desirable  independ- 
ence or  national  interests.  If  this  were  once 
generally  admitted,  if  the  fact  were  seen  that  a 
nation  still  remains  a  national  unit,  an  undimmed 
center  for  the  passion  of  patriotism,  even  though 
it  does  enter  with  other  nations  into  such  organs  of 
government,  an  immense  field  for  development 
would  be  immediately  opened.  The  enormous 
benefit  which  would  result  from  such  International 
Government  may  be  realized  from  the  sardonic 
thought  that  its  establishment  would  imply  the 
recognition  by  statesmen  and  Foreign  Offices  that 


352  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  aim  and  end  of  foreign  policy  and  offices  should 
be  international  co-operation. 

The  second  point  to  be  noticed  is  a  problem 
common  to  many,  if  not  all,  departments  of  Gov- 
ernment. Throughout  this  book,  whenever  the 
effect  of  the  establishment  of  International  Gov- 
ernment was  considered  upon  interests,  it  became 
at  once  clear  that  all  kinds  of  different  group 
interests  are  affected  in  different  ways.  Now  in 
a  great  many  directions  it  is  becoming  clear  that 
one  of  the  problems  most  in  need  of  solution  by 
society  is  the  relationship  of  Government  to  group 
interests.  In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  the  or- 
ganization of  Government  follows  the  geographical 
group.  In  the  State,  in  national  and  municipal 
government,  an  immense  importance  is  usually  given 
in  organization  to  geographical  groupings.  In  the 
House  of  Commons,  for  instance,  representation  is 
only  given  to  geographical  group  interests.  Prior 
to  the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  probable  that  a 
man's  interests  on  the  whole  coincided  with  those 
of  the  geographical  group  to  which  he  belonged, 
because  of  the  primitive  nature  of  communications 
and  the  comparatively  simple  organization  of 
society.  But  this  is  no  longer  true  of  the  world 
to-day.  A  man's  chief  interests  are  no  longer 
determined  by  the  place  he  lives  in,  and  group 
interests,  instead  of  following  geographical  lines, 
follow  those  of  capital,  labor,  professions,  etc. 
But  government  and  organization  of  government 
have  not  kept  pace  with  this  change  of  social 
organization,  and  in  the  House  of  Commons,  for 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  353 

instance,  representation  is  based  on  geography 
instead  of  the  vital  group  interests.  The  incon- 
venience and  injustice  of  this  are  shown  by  the 
growing  practice  by  which  Ministers,  when  any 
important  measure  is  proposed,  go  to  the  organized 
associations  which  do  represent  group  interests  and 
try  to  explain  to,  cajole,  or  bargain  with  them. 
And  this  is  done,  as  Members  of  Parliament  often 
complain,  behind  the  backs  of  the  Houses  of  Par- 
liament. The  reason  is  that  members  no  longer, 
except  in  a  few  agricultural  districts,  represent  any 
real  group  interests,  while  the  House  of  Lords 
represents  predominantly  the  group  interest  of 
landowners.  Hence,  to  a  great  extent,  the  break- 
down of  representative  political  government.  It 
is  essential,  if  the  organization  of  government  is 
to  work  fairly  and  smoothly,  that  it  shall  provide 
for  the  due  representation  of  group  interests. 

This  is  not  a  digression,  for  it  has  an  important 
bearing  upon  International  Government  and  its 
relation  to  national  and  other  interests.  Over  and 
over  again,  when  we  analyze  what  are  called 
national  interests,  we  find  that  they  are  really  the 
interests,  not  of  the  national,  but  of  a  much 
smaller  group.  A  nation  or  State  is  from  one  and 
a  most  important  point  of  view  only  a  geographi- 
cal expression,  a  community  of  persons  living 
within  a  certain  geographical  area.  In  the  mod- 
ern world  interests  of  individuals  are  less  and  less 
determined  by  geography,  and  this  has  necessarily 
had  an  immense  effect  upon  national  interests. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  the  appearance  in  the 


354  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

last  century  of  so  many  international  group  inter- 
ests binding  together  groups  of  persons  in  the  dif- 
ferent nations.  The  international  association  is 
the  spontaneous  growth  to  meet  the  needs  of  those 
international  groups,  just  as  the  trade  union  is  a 
spontaneous  growth  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  national 
group. 

.From  these  considerations  two  conclusions  may 
be  suggested.  All  arguments  against  International 
Government  based  on  assertions  that  it  would  en- 
danger vital  national  interests  should  be  regarded 
with  the  greatest  suspicion.  The  most  vital  in- 
terests of  human  beings  are  hardly  ever  national, 
almost  always  international.  The  interests  which 
most  nearly  affect  a  man's  life  are  those  of  the 
international  group — e.  g.,  labor  or  capital,  to 
which  he  belongs,  not  of  his  national  group.  Un- 
fortunately, while  the  capitalist  denies  this  by  his 
words  and  accepts  it  by  his  deeds,  the  workingman 
has  accepted  it  in  word  and  denies  it  by  his  deeds. 
Nine  times  out  of  ten  in  foreign  politics,  national 
interests,  if  analyzed,  resolve  themselves  into  either 
the  interests  of  a  tiny  class  in  one  nation  as  opposed 
to  a  tiny  class  in  another  nation,  or,  as  the  interests 
of  the  ruling  or  capitalist  class  in  a  nation  as  op- 
posed to  those  of  the  unpropertied,  powerless,  or 
working  class.  Take,  for  instance,  the  question  of 
Morocco  between  Germany  and  France,  which  very 
nearly  provoked  a  European  war.  In  whatever 
way  that  question  had  been  finally  settled,  it  could 
not  possibly  have  affected  the  lives  or  property, 
the  happiness  or  unhappiness,  the  mentality  or 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  355 

morality,  of  999  out  of  every  thousand  Frenchmen 
and  Germans.  It  could  only  have  affected  the 
purses  of  a  small  number  of  French  and  German 
capitalists,  and,  of  course,  that  prestige  of  France 
and  Germany  which  appears  to  be  rather  an  un- 
analyzable  concept  than  a  tangible  interest.  The 
application  of  International  Government  and 
organized  regulation  to  such  questions  would  un- 
doubtedly seriously  affect  the  interests  of  these 
tiny  but  powerful  groups — which  is  the  reason 
why  it  is  so  strenuously  resisted.  Or,  again, 
International  Government  as  in  the  case  of  Labor 
legislation,  which  promoted  the  true  interests  of 
the  masses  which  make  up  the  different  nations, 
would  in  each  nation  strengthen  their  position  in 
the  bitter  struggle  which  they  are  compelled  to 
wage  against  the  exploitation  of  capital.  This  is 
well  understood  by  the  capitalist  and  industrial 
interests  which  oppose  International  Government, 
not  because  it  will  undermine  their  position  against 
the  foreigner,  but  because  it  will  undermine  their 
power  over  their  fellow  citizens. 

The  second  conclusion  is  only  a  development  of 
the  first.  Purely  national  government  makes  no 
provision  for  the  representation  of  vital  group  in- 
terests, and  therefore  makes  it  so  easy  for  the  ruling 
and  powerful  classes  to  delude  whole  nations  by 
specious  appeals  to  patriotism  and  vague  refer- 
ences to  vital  national  interests.  A  sane  and 
practical  internationalism  implies  the  regulation 
of  the  relations  of  national  groups  through  organs 
of  government.  I  have  had  to  say  much  in  these 


356  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

pages  against  a  narrow  nationalism,  against  the 
deification  of  geography  and  the  worship  of  ficti- 
tious national  interests;  but  I  have  never  implied 
that  the  nation  and  sentiments  of  patriotism  and 
nationality  have  not  their  place  in  the  organiza- 
tion and  society  of  the  future.  All  I  have  tried  to 
do  is  to  examine  the  facts  and  to  see  things  in  their 
right  proportions.  The  nation  will  remain  the  unit 
of  international  organization,  the  center  of  the 
sentiments  of  patriotism  and  nationality,  and  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  that  men  bound  together 
by  bonds  of  birth,  blood,  or  geography  desire,  as 
far  as  possible,  to  manage  their  own  affairs  in  their 
own  way.  But  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world 
why  an  international  organization  which  is  based 
upon  the  nation  as  a  unit  should  not  be  combined 
with  an  organization  which  provides  for  the  repre- 
sentation of  group  interests  which  are  not  national. 
In  the  international  association  we  have  already 
the  skeleton  of  a  social  structure  and  organization 
through  which  these  group  interests  might  operate. 
A  little  development,  a  closer  association  between 
the  various  organs  of  International  Government, 
if  accompanied  by  the  loss  of  some  widely  held 
human  illusions  and  delusions,  might  open  a  new 
page  in  the  history  of  society. 

It  may  be  of  interest,  even  at  the  risk  of  appear- 
ing Utopian,  to  consider  for  a  moment  in  what 
directions  such  a  development  might  be  practi- 
cally possible.  Undoubtedly  the  most  hopeful 
road  of  development  would  lie  along  the  path  of 
those  novel  forms  of  international  association  to 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  357 

which  I  have  already  referred  in  describing  L'As- 
sociation  Internationale  pour  la  Lutte  centre  le 
Chomage.  In  such  an  organ  of  government  we 
find  both  forms  of  representation,  the  vertical  or 
national  and  geographical  and  the  horizontal  or 
international,  provided  for.  The  horizontal  group 
interests  of,  say,  Labor  and  Capital,  are  there 
combined  in  one  body  with  the  vertical  groups  of 
national  and  even  municipal  interests.  For  while 
the  great  organizations  of  capital  and  labor  are 
members  of  the  association,  they  themselves  are 
organized  in  national  sections,  and  geography  and 
nationality  are  again  provided  for  by  the  presence 
of  representatives  of  States,  Towns,  and  Munici- 
palities. The  result  is  that  the  organization  of 
government  and  the  organs  of  government  follow 
strictly  the  complication  of  group  interests  in  the 
world  of  facts. 

Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  from  this  association, 
in  order  if  possible  to  edge  away  from  that  terrible 
precipice  of  Utopianism,  to  a  question  of  Inter- 
national Government  which  has  actually  arisen  in 
the  world  of  practical  men.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  in  dealing  with  the  International  Institute  of 
Agriculture  we  saw  that  the  American  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives  seriously  proposed  the 
formation  of  an  International  Commission  to  deal 
with  the  question  of  freights.  The  opposition  to 
this  proposal  comes  from  group  interests,  because 
international  control  of  freights  is  precisely  one  of 
those  questions  which  intimately  affect  a  whole 
mass  of  group  interests.  In  the  White  Sea  Con- 


358  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

ference  we,  in  fact,  saw  an  international  organiza- 
tion which  united  in  one  body  one  of  these  groups, 
the  Shipping  group,  to  control  freights  in  the  inter- 
ests of  that  group.  But  the  modern  ideal  of  gov- 
ernment is  not  to  regulate  affairs  in  the  interests 
of  one  small  group,  but  to  establish  and  maintain 
a  balance  between  various  group  interests,  and 
this  was  the  kind  of  control  which  the  Americans 
contemplated  in  the  case  of  freights. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  American  idea 
could  never  be  efficiently  realized  unless  Inter- 
national Government  were  applied  to  the  freight 
question  through  an  organization  which  allowed 
the  different  group  interests  to  be  adequately 
represented.  And  there  is  no  reason  (except  the 
undue  power  of  certain  group  interests)  why  this 
should  not  be  done  to-morrow  through  an  Inter- 
national Commission  or  Commissions  established 
on  the  lines  of  the  Association  contre  le  Chomage. 
Many  different  forms  might  be  suggested  for  the 
details  of  such  a  development,  but  it  is  worth  while 
briefly  to  consider  some  of  them.  The  Commis- 
sion would  have  to  be  established  through  an 
International  Conference,  at  which  the  represen- 
tatives of  States  would  attend  in  the  usual  way. 
The  Commission  itself  would  probably  in  the  first 
instance  be  merely  deliberative  with  the  power  of 
recommending  proposals  for  adoption  by  an  In- 
ternational Conference,  but  eventually  it  might, 
within  prescribed  limits,  be  given  power  to  pro- 
nounce binding  decisions  or  even  administrative 
powers,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Sugar  Commission 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  359 

and  the  International  Unions.  There  are,  broadly, 
two  forms  upon  which  the  Commission  itself  might 
be  organized.  It  might  in  the  first  place  be  con- 
stituted of  official  representatives  of  national  sec- 
tions, each  nation  having  the  right  to  a  fixed 
number  of  representatives  and  a  fixed  number  of 
votes.  In  that  case  the  different  nations  would 
be  left  to  organize  their  national  sections  or  sub- 
commissions  in  their  own  way,  just  as  we  find  is 
the  case  with  the  International  Maritime  Com- 
mittee and  the  International  Electrotechnical  In- 
stitute. But  in  the  national  section  the  different 
group  interests,  as  well  as  the  State,  would  have 
the  right  of  representation.  Thus  we  should  have, 
for  instance,  a  British  International  Freight  Sub- 
Commission  upon  which  were  represented  the 
shipping  interests  through  the  Shipping  Associa- 
tions, the  railway  interests  through  the  Railway 
Companies,  the  consumers  through  the  Co-opera- 
tive Movement,  Labor  through  the  Trade  Unions, 
and  so  on,  while  the  State  would  also  have  its 
representatives.  The  decisions  of  this  body  would 
determine  the  action  of  the  British  representatives 
upon  the  International  Commission  itself.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  might  be  possible  to  constitute  the 
International  Commission  by  giving  direct  repre- 
sentation upon  it  to  the  group  interests  in  the 
different  countries.  In  that  case,  following  more 
closely  the  form  of  the  Association  centre  le  Cho- 
mage,  the  different  interests  in  this  country,  the 
Shipping  Associations,  the  Trade  Unions,  the 
Co-operative  Movement,  etc.,  would  have  the 


360  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

right  to  send  representatives  with  the  State  repre- 
sentatives to  the  Commission. 

This  is  only  one  way  and  in  one  direction  that 
the  tissue  of  International  Government,  examined 
in  these  chapters,  might  be  utilized  and  developed. 
I  am  well  aware  that  it  will  appear  to  many  merely 
as  a  piece  of  revolutionary  Utopianism.  Perhaps, 
after  all,  the  road  to  many  good  things,  unattain- 
able to-day,  lies  only  through  revolutions  and 
Utopias.  And  if  anyone  prefers  a  tamer  sugges- 
tion, here  is  one,  namely,  that  nothing  more  than 
a  closer  co-operation  between  the  Foreign  Offices 
and  Administrations  of  Europe  with  such  Associa- 
tions as  the  International  Federations  of  Trade 
Unions,  the  International  Labor  Legislation  Asso- 
ciation, or  the  International  Co-operative  Alliance, 
would  be  itself  in  the  nature  of  such  a  revolution 
and  Utopia. 

It  remains  to  consider  whether  this  inquiry 
throws  any  light  upon  the  special  problem  of 
International  Government  as  a  means  of  prevent- 
ing war.  There  have  been  many  occasions  in  these 
pages  upon  which  I  have  ventured  to  suggest  that 
the  experiments  in  International  Government  and 
organization  throw  light  upon  this  problem.  The 
whole  question  of  national  interests  and  the  effect 
upon  them  of  organized  regulation  in  international 
organs  of  government  is  one  which  the  pacifist  and 
his  opposite  alike  ought  to  face.  One  of  my  objects 
in  these  pages  is  to  contribute  something  to  the 
study  of  that  question.  And  one  may,  I  think, 
hazard  certain  other  conclusions,  lame  though  they 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  361 

may  appear.  The  questions  which  have  in  the 
past  caused  wars  and  which  at  first  sight  to  many 
people  will  seem  to  be  utterly  different  from  those 
which  come  before  the  international  organs  which 
we  have  been  considering  are  of  a  political  nature. 
In  Part  I  of  this  book  the  proposal  was  made  that 
they  should  be  submitted  to  a  conference  or  coun- 
cil. The  chief  objections  made  to  such  a  proposal 
by  practical  men  are  two — first,  that  the  national 
interests  involved  in  these  questions  are  so  vital 
that  a  nation  cannot  submit  them  to  a  conference; 
secondly,  that  by  doing  so  a  State  would  abrogate 
its  independence. 

The  first  objection  involves  a  judgment  upon  a 
mass  of  extremely  complicated  facts.  There  are, 
I  believe,  in  the  preceding  chapters  a  large  number 
of  facts  which  go  to  show  that  that  judgment  is 
mistaken.  We  have  seen  many  cases  in  which 
exactly  the  same  argument  has  been  used  to  deter 
this  and  other  countries  from  entering  into  unions 
for  International  Government.  In  those  cases  an 
analysis  of  the  alleged  vital  national  interests 
always  showed  that  they  were  the  interests  of  a 
minute  section  of  the  nation,  and  that  the  interests 
of  the  majority  were  promoted  rather  than  sac- 
rificed by  International  Government.  Moreover, 
when  nations  have  entered  these  unions  the  sacrifice 
of  the  vital  national  interests,  so  invariably  prophe- 
sied, has  never  followed.  Even  in  international 
affairs  the  people  who  perpetually  are  crying 
"wolf"  may  be  justly  regarded  with  suspicion. 
And  the  obvious  plea  that  these  questions  of  a 

25 


362  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

political  nature  affect  more  vital  national  interests 
than  those  dealt  with  in  these  pages  will  not  hold 
water.  The  people  who  would  raise  this  plea  are 
precisely  those  who  would  argue  that  the  interests 
of  trade  and  markets  are  for  a  nation  some  of  the 
most  vital.  Yet  again  and  again  we  have  seen 
these  interests  subjected  to  International  Govern- 
ment without  any  of  these  terrible  results,  and  the 
great  industrial  rivals  in  the  different  nations  dis- 
covering that  their  interests  are  promoted  better 
by  international  agreements  and  co-operation  than 
by  competition.  After  all,  the  causes  of  wars  do 
not  differ  very  much  to-day  from  those  enumerated 
by  Gulliver  to  the  Houyhnhnms :  "  Sometimes  the 
ambition  of  princes,  who  never  think  they  have 
land  or  people  enough  to  govern;  sometimes  the 
corruption  of  ministers,  who  engage  their  masters 
in  a  war,  in  order  to  stifle  the  clamor  of  the  sub- 
jects against  their  evil  administration.  Difference 
in  opinion  hath  cost  many  millions  of  lives;  for 
instance,  whether  flesh  be  bread,  or  bread  flesh. 
.  .  .  Sometimes  the  quarrel  between  two  princes 
is  to  decide  which  of  them  shall  dispossess  a  third 
of  his  dominions,  where  neither  of  them  have  any 
right.  Sometimes  one  prince  quarreleth  with 
another  for  fear  the  other  should  quarrel  with  him. 
Sometimes  a  war  is  entered  upon  because  the 
enemy  is  too  strong,  and  sometimes  because  he  is 
too  weak.  Sometimes  our  neighbors  want  the 
things  which  we  have,  or  have  the  things  which  we 
want;  and  we  both  fight  till  they  take  ours  or  give 
us  theirs."  And  the  horse,  it  will  be  remembered, 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  363 

remarked  that  this  enumeration  "does,  indeed, 
discover  most  admirably  the  effects  of  that  reason 
you  pretend  to;  however,  it  is  happy  that  the 
shame  is  greater  than  the  danger  .  .  .  for  your 
mouths  lying  flat  with  your  faces,  you  can  hardly 
bite  each  other  to  any  purpose,  unless  by  consent." 
Unfortunately,  in  this  supposition,  as  we  are  prov- 
ing to-day,  the  horse  was  incorrect. 

Finally  and  fittingly  we  come  back  once  more 
to  the  question  of  independence,  that  elusive  key 
to  the  baffling  riddles  of  human  government.  If 
war  is  to  be  prevented,  States  must  submit  to  some 
international  control  and  government  in  their 
political  and  administrative  relations.  Here  to  the 
eye  of  the  ordinary  man  the  independence  of  the 
State  must  be  more  jealously  guarded  than  in  any 
other  relations.  And  in  one  sense  this  is  correct. 
In  considering  the  constitution  of  an  International 
Authority  as  a  practical  problem  of  to-day,  we 
found  that  it  was  necessary  to  define  those  ques- 
tions upon  which  States  could  agree  to  be  bound 
by  the  decision  of  an  organ  of  International  Gov- 
ernment. Those  questions  were  defined  by  ex- 
cluding any  which  would  affect  the  independence 
or  territorial  integrity  of  a  State.  For,  as  was 
pointed  out,  without  this  limitation  the  diplo- 
matist, the  lawyer,  and  every  ordinary  and  prac- 
tical man  would  argue,  the  very  existence  of  a 
State  might  be  voted  away  in  the  organ  of  Inter- 
national Government.  What,  for  instance,  would 
prevent  an  international  council  from  deciding 
that  Serbia  should  lose  its  independence  to  Austria, 


364  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

or  Belgium  to  Germany,  or  Finland  to  Russia, 
that  the  British  Empire  should  grant  complete 
independence  to  Ireland  or  the  German  Empire  to 
Poland? 

If  States  agreed  to  the  establishment  only  of 
this  modicum  of  International  Government  under 
an  International  Authority,  an  enormous  step 
would  be  taken  towards  the  abolition  of  war.  But 
that  should  not  blind  us  to  the  facts  which  I  have 
tried  to  investigate.  To  make  a  legal  or  a  patriotic 
fetish  of  independence  is  to  turn  away  from  the 
clear  path  of  human  progress  and  to  make  periodic 
disasters  certain.  A  modern  State  can  only  pre- 
serve its  complete  political  independence  either  by 
cutting  itself  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world  or  by 
maintaining  a  mass  of  unregulated  international 
relations  which,  sooner  or  later,  must  involve  it  in 
a  deadlock  which  can  only  be  ended  by  war.  Is 
there,  then,  any  way  out  of  this  dilemma,  of  which 
one  horn  is  the  necessity  of  preserving  the  power 
of  a  nation  to  control  its  own  affairs,  and  the  other 
is  the  necessity,  where  society  has  become  inter- 
national, for  international  regulation  and  gov- 
ernment ? 

This  is,  of  course,  once  more  the  "paradox  of 
self-government,"  for  which  there  is  probably  no 
cut-and-dried  solution;  but  some  hesitating  con- 
tributions towards  its  unravelling  may  be  sug- 
gested. The  dilemma  is  more  horny  on  paper  than 
in  practice.  The  idea  that  because  States  agreed 
to  submit  questions  and  disputes  involving  inde- 
pendence to  the  decision  of  an  organ  of  Interna- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  365 

tional  Government,  attempts  would  immediately 
be  made  to  destroy  the  national  existence  of  some 
and  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of  others,  is 
contradicted  by  the  whole  history  of  human  gov- 
ernment, makes  no  allowance  for  the  practical 
difficulty  of  such  action,  and  is,  therefore,  certainly 
illusory.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  a  skeleton  in 
every  national  cupboard,  and  every  nation  would 
know  that  if  it  insisted  upon  pulling  out  its  neigh- 
bor's, its  neighbor  would  retort  in  the  same  way. 
Secondly,  in  the  large  number  of  instances  of 
International  Government  and  regulation  which 
I  have  described  in  detail,  there  is  no  sign  of  any 
attempt,  except  in  one  case,  to  misuse  the  machin- 
ery in  this  way,  although  they  have  furnished 
obvious  opportunities  of  undermining  "national 
interests."  The  reason  is  that  the  logic  of  inter- 
national co-operation  is  too  strong  even  for  diplo- 
matists, if  you  once  get  them  to  meet  round  a 
table.  In  the  third  place,  there  is  the  iron  law  of 
facts  to  which  human  beings,  for  all  their  folly 
and  blindness,  inevitably  bow.  Wherever  you 
have  government,  facts  limit  both  the  use  and  the 
misuse  to  which  it  may  be  put,  and  men  uncon- 
sciously conform  to  those  limits.  One  fact  which 
imposes  a  limit  upon  the  misuse  of  government  is 
the  will  of  the  people  to  whom  the  system  of 
government  applies.  If  the  nations  of  Europe, 
with  their  old-established  traditions  and  systems  of 
self-government,  were  in  the  next  hundred  years 
to  establish  an  International  Authority,  even  with 
far  wider  powers  than  those  sketched  in  the  first 


366  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

part  of  this  book,  it  would  be  quite  impossible  in 
the  council  of  such  an  authority  to  destroy  the 
independent  existence  of  a  State  like  Serbia,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  British  Empire.  To  destroy 
the  independent  existence  of  Serbia  you  must  first 
break  the  will  of  the  Serbian  people  to  maintain  it, 
and  you  cannot  do  that  by  any  resolution  in  a 
council  chamber.  The  representatives  in  the  coun- 
cil chamber  know  this,  and,  consciously  and  un- 
consciously, mould  their  actions  and  decisions 
accordingly.  Theoretically,  I  admit,  the  organ- 
ized force  of  government  might  be  put  in  opera- 
tion to  break  the  will  and  to  destroy  the  inde- 
pendence of  Serbia.  But  the  history  of  the  world 
shows  that  where  organized  government  exists 
between  communities  possessing  a  large  measure 
of  self-government  attempts  to  suppress  or  de- 
stroy that  self-government  are  far  rarer  than 
where  there  is  no  tie  except  that  of  unregulated 
violence  or  war.  The  real  independence  of  com- 
munities, and  especially  national  communities,  is 
endangered  by  excessive  or  deficient  centralization 
of  government;  in  other  words,  where  there  is  no 
local  self-government  or  only  local  self-government. 
In  the  past  national  communities  and  States  have 
vacillated  between  complete  independence  and 
complete  dependence,  and  the  second  condition 
has  continually  been  the  result  of  the  first.  For 
when  two  completely  independent  communities 
engage  in  a  dispute,  each  relies  upon  violence  and 
war  as  the  ultimate  arbiter,  and  through  war  the 
will  of  the  one  is  imposed  absolutely  upon  the  will 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  367 

of  the  other.  The  world  is  full  of  communities 
which  have  lost  their  souls,  and  they  have  lost 
them  through  war  or  by  conquest.  For  so  long 
as  there  is  nothing  between  absolute  independence 
and  absolute  dependence,  the  world  must  be  di- 
vided between  communities  which  oppress  and 
communities  which  are  oppressed. 

In  the  British  Empire  and  other  loosely  federated 
States,  we  see  the  beginnings  of  another  system  of 
government,  and  one  to  which  International  Gov- 
ernment would  necessarily  approximate.*  During 
the  last  fifty  years  the  real  independence  of  Aus- 
tralia has  been  far  more  safe  from  other  communi- 
ties in  the  British  Empire  than  has  that  of  Belgium 
or  even  France  from  communities  which  lay  on  the 
other  side  of  their  frontiers.  Australia,  too,  has 
served  as  the  center  of  the  Australian's  patriotism 
no  less  adequately  than  Belgium  has  served  as  the 
center  of  the  Belgian's  patriotism.  Yet  Belgium 
and  Serbia  to-day,  and  Poland  yesterday,  are  and 
were  independent  sovereign  States,  while  Australia 
has  never  enjoyed  that  mysterious  and  intangible 
privilege.  Could  any  fact  display  more  clearly  the 
irony  with  which  history  visits  the  follies  of  men? 

*  International  Government  would  necessarily  begin  by  States,  com- 
munities with  almost  complete  and  long-established  systems  of  local 
self-government,  entering  into  a  loose  union,  in  which  international  ques- 
tions, affecting  independence,  would  be  submitted  for  decision  to  the 
International  Authority.  The  line  between  dependence  and  independence 
would  not  be  clearly  defined.  It  is  noticeable  that  in  the  Colonies  of  the 
British  Empire — where,  one  may  claim  with  justice,  the  problem  of  the 
relationship  between  national  communities  has  been  more  nearly  solved 
than  anywhere  else — the  line  between  dependence  and  independence  is  in 
practice  also  left  undefined. 


PART  III 

ARTICLES    SUGGESTED    FOR    ADOPTION 
BY  AN  INTERNATIONAL  CONFER- 
ENCE AT  THE  TERMINATION 
OF  THE  PRESENT  WAR 

By  The  International  Agreements  Committee 
of  the  Fabian  Research  Department 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  object  of  the  Committee  has  been  limited 
and  practical.  It  has  sought  only  to  formu- 
late, as  a  basis  for  international  discussion 
and  in  the  light  of  history  and  experience — espe- 
cially as  elucidated  by  the  Memorandum  by  Mr. 
L.  S.  Woolf  (which  now  forms  Part  I  of  the  present 
volume) — the  heads  of  an  international  agreement 
by  which  future  wars  may  be  as  far  as  possible 
prevented.  There  is  at  least  a  hope  that,  as  a 
result  of  the  existing  terrible  experience,  a  war- 
weary  world  may  presently  be  willing  to  construct 
some  new  international  machinery  which  can  be 
brought  into  play  to  prevent  the  nations  from 
again  being  stampeded  into  Armageddon. 

The  first  difficulty  will  be  to  get  the  Govern- 
ments, either  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  or  of  the 
forty  lesser  States — all  of  them  necessarily  wary 
and  suspicious — to  agree  to  the  creation  of  any 
such  international  machinery.  It  is  therefore 
essential,  if  we  are  to  be  practical,  to  limit  our 
proposals  to  that  for  which  there  is  at  least  some 
reason  to  expect  consent.  What  is  suggested  is, 
accordingly,  no  merging  of  independent  national 
units  into  a  "world-State,"  though  to  this  Utopia 
future  ages  may  well  come.  No  impairment  of 

371 


372  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

sovereignty  and  no  sacrifice  of  independence  are 
proposed.  Each  State  even  remains  quite  free  to 
go  to  war,  in  the  last  resort,  if  the  dispute  in  which 
it  is  engaged  proves  intractable.  Moreover,  na- 
tional disarmament — to  which  at  this  moment  no 
State  will  even  dream  of  taking  the  smallest  step 
— is  left  to  come  about  of  itself,  just  as  the  indi- 
vidual carrying  of  arms  falls  silently  into  desuetude 
as  and  when  fears  of  aggression  die  down  before 
the  rule  of  the  law. 

The  new  world  that  we  have  to  face  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  war  will,  perforce,  start  from  the 
ruins  of  the  old.  All  that  will  be  immediately 
practicable  can  be  presented  as  only  a  more  sys- 
tematic development  of  the  rapidly  multiplying 
Arbitration  Treaties  of  the  present  century,  and 
the  conclusions  of  the  two  Conventions  at  The 
Hague.  Only  on  some  such  lines,  it  is  suggested, 
can  we  reasonably  hope,  at  this  juncture,  to  get 
the  Governments  of  the  world  to  come  into  the 
proposed  agreement. 

The  alternative  to  war  is  law.  What  we  have 
to  do  is  to  find  some  way  of  deciding  differences 
between  States,  and  of  securing  the  same  acquies- 
cence in  the  decision  as  is  now  shown  by  individual 
citizens  in  a  legal  judgment.  This  involves  the 
establishment  of  a  Supernational  Authority,  which 
is  the  essence  of  our  proposals. 

What  is  suggested  is,  first,  the  establishment  of 
an  International  High  Court,  to  which  the  nations 
shall  agree  to  submit,  not  all  their  possible  differ- 
ences and  disputes,  but  only  such  as  are,  by  their 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  373 

very  nature,  "legal"  or  "justiciable."  Experience 
warrants  the  belief  that  the  decisions  of  such  a 
judicial  tribunal,  confined  to  the  issues  which  the 
litigant  States  had  submitted  to  it,  would  normally 
be  accepted  by  them.  Provision  is  made,  how- 
ever, for  a  series  of  "sanctions  other  than  war," 
principally  economic  and  social  in  character,  by 
which  all  the  constituent  States  could  bring  pres- 
sure to  bear  on  any  State  not  obeying  a  decision 
of  the  Court. 

Alongside  the  International  High  Court,  but 
without  authority  over  it,  there  should  be  an  In- 
ternational Council,  composed  of  representatives 
of  such  of  the  forty  or  fifty  independent  sovereign 
States  of  the  world  as  may  choose  voluntarily  to 
take  part.  It  is  proposed  that  this  International 
Council  should  be  differently  regulated  and  organ- 
ized according  (i)  as  it  acts  as  a  World  Legislature 
for  codifying  and  amending  international  law,  and 
for  dealing  with  questions  interesting  only  America 
or  Europe  respectively;  or  (2)  is  invoked  by  any 
constituent  State  to  mediate  in  any  dispute  not 
of  a  nature  to  be  submitted  to  the  International 
High  Court.  It  is  not  suggested  that  the  enact- 
ments or  the  decisions  of  the  International  Council 
should,  except  to  a  very  limited  extent,  be  binding 
on  States  unwilling  to  ratify  or  acquiesce  in  them. 
Subject  to  the  provisions  made  to  prevent  the 
proceedings  being  brought  to  naught  by  a  tiny 
and  unimportant  minority,  on  matters  of  second- 
ary importance,  it  is  suggested  that  the  Inter- 
national Council  must  content  itself,  at  any  rate 


374  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

at  the  outset,  with  that  "greatest  common  meas- 
ure" which  commands  general  assent. 

Provision  is  made  for  an  International  Secre- 
tariat and  an  International  Official  Gazette,  in 
which  all  treaties  or  agreements  will  be  immedi- 
ately published,  no  others  being  recognized  or  re- 
garded as  enforceable. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  no  fewer  than  twenty- 
one  out  of  the  forty  to  fifty  independent  sovereign 
States  of  the  world  are  in  America,  the  suggestion 
is  made  that  there  should  be  separate  Councils  for 
Europe  and  America  respectively,  with  suitable 
provision  in  each  case  for  the  safeguarding  of  the 
interests  of  other  States.  Moreover,  as  the  posi- 
tion of  the  eight  Great  Powers  (Austria-Hungary, 
the  British  Empire,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Japan, 
Russia,  and  the  United  States),  which  govern 
among  them  three-fourths  of  all  the  population  of 
the  world  and  control  nine-tenths  of  its  armaments, 
differs  so  greatly  from  that  of  the  other  two-score 
States,  provision  is  made  both  for  their  meeting  in 
separate  Councils  and  for  ratification  of  all  pro- 
ceedings by  the  Council  of  the  Great  Powers.  It  is 
nowhere  suggested  that  any  one  of  the  eight  Great 
Powers  can — except  by  its  own  express  ratification 
— be  made  subject  to  any  enactment  or  decision 
of  the  International  Council  that  it  may  deem  to 
impair  its  independence  or  its  territorial  integrity, 
or  to  require  any  alteration  of  its  internal  laws. 

It  follows,  accordingly,  that  each  State  retains 
the  right  to  go  to  war  if,  after  due  delay,  it  chooses 
to  do  so. 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  375 

What  the  several  States  are  asked  to  bind  them- 
selves to  are  (a)  to  submit  all  disputes  of  the 
"legal"  or  "justiciable"  kind  (but  no  others)  to 
the  decision  of  the  International  High  Court,  unless 
some  special  tribunal  is  preferred  and  agreed  to; 
(b)  to  lay  before  the  International  Council,  for 
enquiry,  mediation,  and  eventual  report,  all  dis- 
putes not  "justiciable"  by  the  International  High 
Court  or  other  tribunal;  (c)  in  no  case  to  proceed 
to  any  warlike  operation,  or  commit  any  act  of 
aggression,  until  twelve  months  after  the  dispute 
had  been  submitted  to  one  or  the  other  body;  (d) 
to  put  in  operation,  if  and  when  required,  the  sanc- 
tions (other  than  war)  decreed  by  the  International 
High  Court;  and,  possibly  the  most  essential  of 
all  these  proposals,  (e)  to  make  common  cause,  even 
to  the  extent  of  war,  against  any  constituent  State 
which  violates  this  fundamental  agreement. 

It  remains  to  be  said  only  that  the  adoption  of 
this  plan  of  preventing  war — the  establishment  of 
the  proposed  Super-national  Authority — is  not  de- 
pendent on,  and  need  not  wait  for,  the  adhesion 
of  all  the  independent  sovereign  States  of  the  world. 


II 

THE   ARTICLES 

THE  signatory  States,  desirous  of  preventing 
any  future  outbreak  of  war,  improving  in- 
ternational relations,  arriving  by  agreement 
at  an  authoritative  codification  of  international 
law  and  facilitating  the  development  of  such  joint 
action  as  is  exemplified  by  the  International  Postal 
Union,  hereby  agree  and  consent  to  the  following 
Articles. 

THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  A  SUPERNATIONAL 
AUTHORITY 

1.  There  shall  be  established  as  soon  as  possible 
within  the  period  of  one  year  from  the  date  hereof 
(a)  an  International  High  Court  for  the  decision 
of  justiciable  issues  between  independent  Sover- 
eign States;   (b)  an  International  Council  with  the 
double  function  of  securing,  by  common  agree- 
ment,  such   international   legislation   as   may  be 
practicable,  and  of  promoting  the  settlement  of 
non-justiciable  issues  between  independent  Sover- 
eign States;  and  (c)  an  International  Secretariat. 

The  Constituent  States 

2.  The  independent  Sovereign  States  to  be  ad- 
mitted as  Constituent  States,  and  hereinafter  so 
described,  shall  be: 

376 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  377 

(a)  The  belligerents  in  the  present  war; 

(b)  The  United  States  of  America; 

(c)  Such  other  independent  Sovereign  States  as 
have  been  represented  at  either  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ferences at  The  Hague,   and  as  shall  apply  for 
admission  within  six  months  from  the  date  of  these 
Articles;  and 

(d)  Such  other  independent  Sovereign  States  as 
may  hereafter  be  admitted  by  the  International 
Council. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  2 

The  forty-four  States  represented  at  one  or  other  of  the 
Hague  Conferences  were  (i.)  the  eight  Great  Powers — viz., 
Austria-Hungary,  the  British  Empire,  France,  Germany, 
Italy,  Japan,  Russia,  and  the  United  States;  (ii.)  the  fol- 
lowing fifteen  other  States  of  Europe — viz.,  Belgium,  Bul- 
garia, Denmark,  Greece,  Holland,  Luxemburg,  Montenegro, 
Norway,  Portugal,  Roumania,  Serbia,  Spain,  Sweden,  Swit- 
zerland, Turkey;  (iii.)  the  following  eighteen  other  States  of 
America — viz.,  Argentina,  Bolivia,  Brazil,  Chile,  Colombia, 
Cuba,  Dominican  Republic,  Ecuador,  Guatemala,  Haiti, 
Mexico,  Nicaragua,  Panama,  Paraguay,  Peru,  Salvador,  Uru- 
guay, Venezuela  (these,  together  with  the  United  States,  and 
also  Costa  Rica  and  Honduras,  constitute  the  twenty-one 
members  of  the  Pan-American  Union);  (iv.)  the  following 
three  other  States — viz.,  China,  Persia,  Siam.  Thus  the 
only  existing  independent  sovereign  States  which  could  con- 
ceivably be  brought  in — and  some  of  these  may  well  be 
deemed  not  independent  in  respect  of  foreign  relations — are 
the  American  States  of  Costa  Rica  and  Honduras  (which 
were  invited  to  the  1907  Hague  Conference,  and  actually 
appointed  delegates,  who  did  not  attend) ;  the  African  States 
of  Morocco,  Liberia  and  Abyssinia;  the  Asiatic  States  of 
Afghanistan,  Thibet  and  Nepaul;  and  the  European  State 
26 


378  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

of  Albania  (besides  Andorra,  Lichtenstein,  Monaco  and  San 
Marino,  which  have  populations  of  less  than  20,000). 

It  may  be  suggested  that  admission  should  be  refused  to 
any  State  (i.)  which  does  not,  in  fact,  enter  regularly  into 
foreign  relations  with  more  than  one  other  State;  or  (ii.)  of 
which  the  foreign  relations  are  under  the  control  of  another 
State;  or  (iii.)  of  which  the  population  is  less  than  100,000. 
The  adoption  of  these  rules  would  probably  exclude  all  but 
two  or  three  of  the  above-mentioned  outstanding  States. 

Covenant  Against  Aggression 

3.  It  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  these  Articles 
that  the  Constituent  States  severally  disclaim  all 
desire  or  intention  of  aggression  on  any  other  inde- 
pendent Sovereign  State  or  States,  and  that  they 
agree  and  bind  themselves,  under  all  circumstances, 
and  without  any  evasion  or  qualification  whatever, 
never  to  pursue,  beyond  the  stage  of  courteous 
representation,  any  claim  or  complaint  that  any 
of  them  may  have  against  any  other  Constituent 
State,  without  first  submitting  such  claim  or  com- 
plaint, either  to  the  International  High  Court  for 
adjudication  and  decision,  or  to  the  International 
Council  for  examination  and  report,  with  a  view  to 
arriving  at  a  settlement  acceptable  to  both  parties. 

Covenant  Against  War  Except  as  a  Final  Resource 

4.  The  Constituent  States  expressly  bind  them- 
selves severally  under  no  circumstances  to  address 
to  any  Constituent  State  an  ultimatum,  or  a  threat 
of  military  or  naval  operations  in  the  nature  of 
war,  or  of  any  act  of  aggression;    and  under  no 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  379 

circumstances  to  declare  war,  or  order  mobiliza- 
tion or  begin  military  or  naval  operations  of  the 
nature  of  war,  or  violate  the  territory  or  attack 
the  ships  of  another  State,  otherwise  than  by  way 
of  repelling  and  defeating  a  forcible  attack  actually 
made  by  military  or  naval  force,  until  the  matter 
in  dispute  has  been  submitted  as  aforesaid  to  the 
International  High  Court  or  to  the  International 
Council,  and  until  after  the  expiration  of  one  year 
from  the  date  of  such  submission. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  Constituent  State  shall, 
after  submission  of  the  matter  at  issue  to  the 
International  Council  and  after  the  expiration  of 
the  specified  time,  be  precluded  from  taking  any 
action,  even  to  the  point  of  going  to  war,  in  defense 
of  its  own  honor  or  interests,  as  regards  any  issues 
which  are  not  justiciable  within  the  definition  laid 
down  by  these  Articles,  and  which  affect  either  its 
independent  sovereignty  or  its  territorial  integrity, 
or  require  any  change  in  its  internal  laws,  and  with 
regard  to  which  no  settlement  acceptable  to  itself 
has  been  arrived  at. 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  COUNCIL 

5.  The  International  Council  shall  be  a  continu- 
ously existing  deliberative  and  legislative  body 
composed  of  representatives  of  the  Constituent 
States,  to  be  appointed  in  such  manner,  for  such 
periods  and  under  such  conditions  as  may  in  each 
case  from  time  to  time  be  determined  by  the 
several  States. 


380  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Each  of  the  eight  Great  Powers — viz.,  Austria- 
Hungary,  the  British  Empire,  France,  Germany, 
Italy,  Japan,  Russia,  and  the  United  States  of 
America — may  appoint  five  representatives.  Each 
of  the  other  Constituent  States  may  appoint  two 
representatives. 

Different  Sittings  of  the  Council 

6.  The  International  Council  shall  sit  either  as 
a  Council  of  all  the  Constituent  States,  hereinafter 
called  the  Council  sitting  as  a  whole,  or  as  the 
Council  of  the  eight  Great  Powers,  or  as  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  States  other  than  the  eight  Great  Powers, 
or  as  the  Council  for  America,  or  as  the  Council 
for  Europe,  each  such  sitting  being  restricted  to 
the  representatives  of  the  States  thus  indicated. 

There  shall  stand  referred  to  the  Council  of  the 
eight  Great  Powers  any  question  arising  between 
any  two  or  more  of  such  Powers,  and  also  any  other 
question  in  which  any  of  such  Powers  formally 
claims  to  be  concerned,  and  requests  to  have  so 
referred. 

There  shall  also  stand  referred  to  the  Council 
of  the  eight  Great  Powers,  for  consideration  and 
ratification,  or  for  reference  back  in  order  that  they 
may  be  reconsidered,  the  proceedings  of  the  Coun- 
cil for  America,  the  Council  for  Europe,  and  the 
Council  of  the  States  other  than  the  eight  Great 
Powers. 

There  shall  stand  referred  to  the  Council  for 
Europe  any  question  arising  between  two  or  more 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  381 

independent  Sovereign  States  of  Europe,  and  not 
directly  affecting  any  independent  Sovereign  State 
not  represented  in  that  Council,  provided  that 
none  of  the  independent  Sovereign  States  not  so 
represented  formally  claims  to  be  concerned  in 
such  question,  and  provided  that  none  of  the  eight 
Great  Powers  formally  claims  to  have  it  referred 
to  the  Council  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  or  to  the 
Council  sitting  as  a  whole. 

There  shall  stand  referred  to  the  Council  for 
America  any  question  arising  between  two  or  more 
independent  Sovereign  States  of  America,  not 
directly  affecting  any  independent  Sovereign  State 
not  represented  in  that  Council,  provided  that 
none  of  the  independent  Sovereign  States  not  so 
represented  formally  claims  to  be  concerned  in 
such  question,  and  provided  that  none  of  the  eight 
Great  Powers  formally  claims  to  have  it  referred 
to  the  Council  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  or  to  the 
Council  sitting  as  a  whole. 

There  shall  stand  referred  to  the  Council  for  the 
States  other  than  the  eight  Great  Powers  any 
question  between  two  or  more  of  such  States,  not 
directly  affecting  any  of  the  eight  Great  Powers 
and  which  none  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  formally 
claims  to  have  referred  to  the  Council  sitting  as 
a  whole. 

The  Council  shall  sit  as  a  whole  for — 

(a)  General  legislation  and  any  question  not 
standing  referred  to  the  Council  of  the  eight  Great 
Powers,  the  Council  of  the  States  other  than  the 


382  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

eight  Great  Powers,  the  Council  for  Europe  or  the 
Council  for  America  respectively; 

(b)  The  appointment  and  all  questions  relating 
to  the  conditions  of  office,  functions  and  powers  of 
the  International  Secretariat,  and  of  the  President 
and  other  officers  of  the  International  Council; 

(c)  The  settlement  of  Standing  Orders,  and  all 
questions  relating  to  procedure  and  verification  of 
powers ; 

(d)  The   financial   affairs   of  the   International 
Council  and  International  High  Court,  the  allo- 
cation of  the  cost  among  the  Constituent  States, 
and  the  issue  of  precepts  upon  the  several  Con- 
stituent States  for  the  shares  due  from  them; 

(e)  The    admission    of    independent    Sovereign 
States  as  Constituent  States;  and 

(/)  Any  proposal  to  alter  any  of  these  Articles, 
and  the  making  of  such  an  alteration. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  6. 

The  suggested  complex  organization  of  the  International 
Council  is  required  in  order:  (a)  To  prevent  the  Council 
being  swamped,  when  it  is  dealing  with  matters  not  affect- 
ing Central  and  South  America,  by  the  representatives  of 
the  twenty  independent  Sovereign  States  of  that  part  of  the 
world;  and  (b)  to  maintain  unimpaired  the  practical  hege- 
mony and  the  responsibility  for  preventing  a  serious  war 
which  have,  in  fact,  devolved  upon  the  eight  Great  Powers, 
whose  adhesion  to  these  Articles  is  essential  to  their  full 
efficacy. 

The  Council  for  America  would  consist  exclusively  of  the 
representatives  of  the  twenty-one  independent  Sovereign 
States  of  the  American  Continent  now  associated  in  the 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  383 

Pan-American  Union.  Other  States  having  dependencies  on 
or  near  that  Continent  (viz.,  the  British  Empire  in  respect 
of  the  Canadian  Dominion,  Newfoundland,  the  British  West 
Indian  Islands,  British  Honduras,  British  Guiana,  and  the 
Falkland  Islands;  France  in  respect  of  St.  Pierre  and  Mique- 
lon,  Guadeloupe,  Martinique  and  French  Guiana;  Holland 
in  respect  of  Surinam  and  Curacao;  and  Denmark  in  respect 
of  Greenland,  St.  Croix,  St.  Thomas  and  St.  John)  would  be 
safeguarded  by  the  power  to  require  the  transfer  of  any 
question  to  the  Council  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  or  to  the 
Council  sitting  as  a  whole. 


Membership  of  the  Council  and  Fating 

7.  All  the  Constituent  States  shall  have  equal 
rights  to  participation  in  the  deliberations  of  the 
International  Council.  Any  Constituent  State  may 
submit  to  the  International  Council  sitting  as  a 
whole  any  proposal  for  any  alteration  of  Inter- 
national Law,  or  for  making  an  enactment  of  new 
law;  and  also  (subject  to  the  provisions  of  these 
Articles  with  regard  to  the  submission  of  justiciable 
issues  to  the  International  High  Court)  may  bring 
before  the  Council  any  question,  dispute  or  dif- 
ference arising  between  it  and  any  other  Constit- 
uent State. 

When  the  International  Council  is  sitting  as  the 
Council  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  or  as  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  States  other  than  the  eight  Great  Powers 
each  of  the  States  represented  therein  shall  have 
one  vote  only. 

When  the  International  Council  is  sitting  as  a 
whole  or  as  the  Council  for  Europe  or  as  the  Coun- 


384  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

cil  for  America,  the  number  of  votes  to  be  given 
on  behalf  of  each  State  shall  be  as  follows : — 

[The  scale  of  voting  strength  will  require  to  be  pre- 
scribed in  the  treaty.] 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  7 

The  question  of  the  relative  voting  power  in  the  Inter- 
national Council  of  the  forty  or  fifty  independent  Sovereign 
States  is  one  of  the  greatest  difficulty.  At  the  Hague  Con- 
ference the  smaller  States  successfully  maintained  the  right 
of  all  the  States,  even  the  smallest,  to  equality  of  voting 
power.  On  the  other  hand,  the  eight  Great  Powers,  which 
are  probably  administering  three-fourths  of  the  total  popu- 
lation of  the  world,  disposing  of  seven-eighths  of  its  govern- 
mental revenues,  and  controlling  nine-tenths  of  its  armed 
forces,  will  certainly  not  submit  to  be  outvoted  by  nine  of 
the  smallest  States  of  America  or  Europe. 

One  suggested  scale  of  relative  voting  power  has  the  unique 
merit  of  having  been  actually  agreed  to  at  the  Hague  Con- 
ference in  1907  in  the  form  of  the  relative  participation  of 
the  Judges  of  the  several  States  in  the  proposed  International 
Prize  Court.  Devised  for  such  a  purpose,  it  somewhat  over- 
values certain  States  having  exceptionally  large  maritime 
interests  (such  as  Norway),  and  undervalues  some  having 
small  maritime  interests  (such  as  Serbia).  Other  minor 
adjustments  might  now  have  to  be  made. 

As  agreed  to  by  the  Hague  Conference,  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  the  States  works  out  into  the  following  scale  of 
votes: 

Austria-Hungary,  the  British  Empire,  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Japan,  Russia,  the  United 

States  of  America 20  votes  each 

Spain 12  votes  each 

The  Netherlands 9  votes  each 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR 385 

Belgium,  Denmark,  Greece,  Norway,  Portu- 
gal, Sweden,  China,  Roumania,  Turkey.. . .  6  votes  each 

Argentina,  Brazil,  Chile,  Mexico 4  votes  each 

Switzerland,  Bulgaria,  Persia 3  votes  each 

Colombia,  Peru,  Uruguay,  Venezuela,  Serbia, 

Siam 2  votes  each 

The  other  Constituent  States I  vote   each 

(These  may  include  Bolivia,  Costa  Rica,  Cuba,  Dominican 
Republic,  Ecuador,  Guatemala,  Haiti,  Honduras,  Luxem- 
burg, Montenegro,  Nicaragua,  Panama,  Salvador,  etc.) 

As  regards  the  Council  for  America,  it  may  be  urged  that 
the  existing  Pan-American  Union  has  equal  voting.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  United  States  is  not  likely  to  allow  such  a 
Council  to  become  an  effective  legislature  if,  with  four-fifths 
of  the  population,  it  has  only  one- twenty-first  of  the  voting 
power.  The  United  States  may,  indeed,  insist,  in  this  Coun- 
cil, on  an  even  larger  relative  voting  power  than  was  con- 
ceded for  the  Prize  Court. 

A  possible  compromise  between  the  two  views  is  suggested 
in  Article  7 — the  principle  of  equality  prevailing  in  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  eight  Great  Powers  and  the  Council  of  the  States 
other  than  the  eight  Great  Powers,  whilst  in  the  Councils  for 
Europe  and  America  and  in  the  Council  sitting  as  a  whole* 
the  adoption  of  a  scale  of  voting  power  is  proposed. 

It  may,  however,  be  deemed  by  the  eight  Great  Powers  a 
sufficient  safeguard  of  their  influence  that  any  one  of  them 
can  require  any  question  to  be  transferred  to  the  Council  of 
the  eight  Great  Powers,  and  that  any  decision  of  the  other 
Councils  is  required  to  be  submitted  to  this  Council  for  rati- 
fication. It  may  be  observed  that,  if  this  view  is  taken, 
and  if  the  forty  smaller  States  insist  on  equality  of  voting 
power  in  the  Council  sitting  as  a  whole,  the  result  would 
inevitably  be  detrimental  to  its  influence  as  a  legislature; 
and  the  tendency  would  be  for  it  to  be  superseded,  in  all  but 
unimportant  and  ceremonial  matters,  by  the  Council  of  the 
eight  Great  Powers. 


386  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Legislation  Subject  to  Ratification 

8.  It  shall  be  within  the  competence  of  the 
International  Council  to  codify  and  declare  the 
International  Law  existing  between  the  several 
independent  Sovereign  States  of  the  world;  and 
any  such  codifying  enactment,  when  and  in  so 
far  as  ratified  by  the  Constituent  States,  shall  be 
applied  and  enforced  by  the  International  High 
Court. 

It  shall  also  be  within  the  competence  of  the 
International  Council  from  time  to  time,  by  spe- 
cific enactment,  to  amend  International  Law, 
whether  or  not  this  has  been  codified;  and  any 
such  enactment  when  and  in  so  far  as  ratified  by 
the  several  Constituent  States  shall  be  applied 
and  enforced  by  the  International  High  Court. 

Whenever  any  Constituent  State  notifies  its  re- 
fusal to  ratify  as  a  whole  any  enactment  made  by 
the  International  Council,  it  shall  at  the  same  time 
notify  its  ratification  of  such  part  or  parts  of  such 
enactment  as  it  will  consent  to  be  bound  by;  and 
the  International  Council  shall  thereupon  re-enact 
the  parts  so  ratified  by  all  the  Constituent  States, 
and  declare  such  enactment  to  have  been  so  ratified, 
and  such  enactment  shall  thereupon  be  applied  and 
enforced  by  the  International  High  Court. 

When  any  enactment  of  the  International  Coun- 
cil making  any  new  general  rule  of  law  has  been 
ratified  wholly  or  in  part  by  any  two  or  more  Con- 
stituent States,  but  not  by  all  the  Constituent 
States,  it  shall,  so  far  as  ratified,  be  deemed  to  be 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  387 

binding  on  the  ratifying  State  or  States,  but  only 
in  respect  of  the  relations  of  such  State  or  States 
with  any  other  ratifying  State  or  States;  and  it 
shall  be  applied  and  enforced  accordingly,  by  the 
International  High  Court. 

(Query  add:  these  additional  Articles.) 

Legislation  on  Matters  of  Secondary  Importance  by 
Overwhelming  Majorities 

SA.  When  any  enactment  of  the  International 
Council  does  not  affect  the  independent  sovereignty 
or  the  territorial  integrity  and  does  not  require  any 
change  in  the  internal  laws  of  any  Constituent  State, 
and  has  been  passed  by  a  three-fourths  majority  of  the 
votes  given  by  the  representatives  present  and  voting 
at  the  Council  sitting  as  a  whole  (query  add:  provided 
that  such  majority  includes  all  the  eight  Great  Powers), 
it  shall,  irrespective  of  ratification  by  the  several  Con- 
stituent States,  and  notwithstanding  objection  by  one 
or  more  of  them,  be  deemed  to  have  become  law  and 
to  be  binding  on  all  the  Constituent  States,  and  shall 
be  applied  and  enforced  by  the  International  High 
Court. 

The  International  High  Court  shall  alone  decide 
whether  any  enactment  of  the  International  Council 
affects  the  independent  sovereignty  or  the  territorial 
integrity,  or  requires  any  change  in  the  internal  laws 
of  any  Constituent  State;  and  every  enactment  of  the 
Council  shall  be  presumed  not  to  affect  the  independ- 
ent sovereignty  or  the  territorial  integrity,  or  to  re- 
quire any  change  in  the  internal  laws  of  any  Con- 


388  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

stituent  State  until  the  International  High  Court  has 
decided  to  the  contrary. 

Facultative  enforcement  by  overwhelming  majority  of 
legislation  carried  by  overwhelming  majorities 
even  if  of  primary  importance,  and  not  ratified 
by  a  small  minority  of  the  minor  States. 

SB.  When  any  enactment  of  the  International 
Council  sitting  as  a  whole  has  not  received  a  three- 
fourths  majority  of  the  votes  given  by  the  representa- 
tives present  and  voting,  or  when  such  enactment  has 
received  such  a  majority  but  affects  the  independent 
sovereignty  or  the  territorial  integrity,  or  requires  any 
change  in  the  internal  laws  of  any  Constituent  State, 
and  when  such  enactment  has  not  been  ratified  by  all 
the  several  Constituent  States,  it  shall  nevertheless  be 
within  the  competence  of  the  International  Council 
sitting  as  a  whole,  by  a  three-fourths  majority  of  the 
votes  given  by  the  representatives  present  and  voting 
(query  add:  provided  that  such  majority  includes  all 
the  eight  Great  Powers),  to  refer  to  the  International 
High  Court  for  decision  the  question  of  whether  any 
Constituent  State  has,  by  any  positive  act  changing 
the  status  quo,  committed  what  would  have  been  a 
contravention  of  the  said  enactment  if  it  had  been 
effectively  made  law  by  the  Council  and  applied  by 
the  Court.  If  the  decision  of  the  Court  should  be  that 
such  contravention  by  positive  act  changing  the  status 
quo  has  taken  place,  it  shall  be  within  the  competence 
of  the  Council  sitting  as  a  whole,  but  only  by  such 
special  majority  as  aforesaid,  to  invite  the  Constituent 
State  committing  such  contravention  to  make  repara- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  389 

tion  or  pay  compensation;  and  the  Council  may,  if 
it  thinks  fit,  by  the  same  special  majority  as  afore- 
said, require  any  or  all  of  the  Constituent  States  to 
enforce  its  decision  in  the  same  way  as  if  it  were  a 
decision  of  the  High  Court  by  any  sanction  other  than 
that  of  military  or  naval  operations  in  the  nature 
of  war. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLES  8,  SA  AND  SB 

The  legislative  powers  proposed  for  the  International  Coun- 
cil have  to  be  limited,  at  the  outset,  because  none  of  the  inde- 
pendent Sovereign  States  of  the  world,  large  or  small,  would 
at  present  undertake,  in  advance,  to  be  bound  by  the  legis- 
lation enacted  by  such  a  Council.  It  would  be  a  great  gain 
to  get  any  International  Legislation,  even  if  subject  to  rati- 
fication by  each  State.  Even  when  every  clause  not  ratified 
had  been  thrown  out,  the  volume  of  such  legislation — all  the 
more  authoritative  because  it  had  been  specifically  assented 
to — would  steadily  increase. 

It  is  tentatively  suggested  that  agreement  might  possibly 
be  obtained  to  two  carefully-safeguarded  extensions  of  legis- 
lative capacity.  On  matters  of  secondary  importance  all  the 
Constituent  States  might  conceivably  agree  to  be  bound  by 
an  overwhelming  majority,  and  thus  avoid  the  inconvenience 
that  might  be  caused  by  a  single  State,  perhaps  out  of  sheer 
obstinacy  or  misapprehension,  refusing  to  ratify. 

Moreover,  even  when  the  subject  matter  is  of  more  than 
secondary  importance,  the  Constituent  States  might  be  will- 
ing so  far  to  bind  themselves  to  respect  the  repeated  decision 
of  an  overwhelming  majority  as  to  allow  that  overwhelming 
majority,  if  it  thought  fit,  to  restrain,  by  means  stopping 
short  of  war,  any  recalcitrant  State  from  flouting  such  a 
repeated  decision  of  the  States  of  the  world  by  any  positive 
act  which  changes  the  "status  quo" 

It  may  be  that  the  eight  Great  Powers  would  consent  to 


390  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

either  or  both  these  extensions  of  the  legislative  authority  of 
the  International  Council  if  the  overwhelming  majority  re- 
quired had  always  to  include  all  the  eight  Great  Powers 
themselves. 

N on- Justiciable  Issues 

9.  When  any  question,  difference  or  dispute 
arising  between  two  or  more  Constituent  States  is 
not  justiciable  as  defined  in  these  Articles,  and  is 
not  promptly  brought  to  an  amicable  settlement, 
and  is  of  such  a  character  that  it  might  ultimately 
endanger  friendly  relations  between  such  States,  it 
shall  be  the  duty  of  each  party  to  the  matter  at 
issue,  irrespective  of  any  action  taken  or  not  taken 
by  any  other  party,  to  submit  the  question,  differ- 
ence or  dispute  to  the  International  Council  with 
a  view  to  a  satisfactory  settlement  being  arrived 
at.  The  Council  may  itself  invite  the  parties  to 
lay  any  such  question,  difference  or  dispute  before 
the  Council,  or  the  Council  may  itself  take  any 
such  matter  at  issue  into  its  own  consideration. 

The  Constituent  States  hereby  severally  agree 
and  bind  themselves  under  no  circumstances  to 
address  to  any  other  Constituent  State  an  ultima- 
tum or  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  threat  of  forcible 
reprisals  or  naval  or  military  operations,  or  actu- 
ally to  commence  hostilities  against  such  State, 
or  to  violate  its  territory,  or  to  attack  its  ships, 
otherwise  than  by  way  of  repelling  and  defeating 
a  forcible  attack  actually  made  by  naval  or  mili- 
tary force,  before  a  matter  in  dispute,  if  not  of  a 
justiciable  character  as  defined  in  these  Articles, 
has  been  submitted  to  or  taken  into  consideration 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  391 

by  the  International  Council  as  aforesaid  for  in- 
vestigation, modification  and  report,  and  during  a 
period  of  one  year  from  the  date  of  such  submission 
or  consideration. 

The  International  Council  may  appoint  a  Per- 
manent Board  of  Conciliators  for  dealing  with  all 
such  questions,  differences  or  disputes  as  they  arise, 
and  may  constitute  the  Board  either  on  the  nomi- 
nation of  the  several  Constituent  States  or  other- 
wise, in  such  manner,  upon  such  conditions  and 
for  such  term  or  terms  as  the  Council  may  decide. 

When  any  question,  difference  or  dispute,  not  of 
a  justiciable  character  as  defined  in  these  Articles, 
is  submitted  to  or  taken  into  consideration  by  the 
International  Council  as  aforesaid,  the  Council 
shall,  with  the  least  possible  delay,  take  action, 
either  (i)  by  referring  the  matter  at  issue  to  the 
Permanent  Board  of  Conciliators,  or  (2)  by  ap- 
pointing a  Special  Committee,  whether  exclusively 
of  the  Council  or  otherwise,  to  enquire  into  the 
matter  and  report,  or  (3)  by  appointing  a  Com- 
mission of  Enquiry  to  investigate  the  matter  and 
report,  or  (4)  by  itself  taking  the  matter  into 
consideration. 

The  Constituent  States  hereby  agree  and  bind 
themselves,  whether  or  not  they  are  parties  to  any 
such  matter  at  issue,  to  give  all  possible  facilities 
to  the  International  Council,  to  the  Permanent 
Board  of  Conciliators,  to  any  Committee  or  Com- 
mission of  Enquiry  appointed  by  either  of  them, 
and  to  any  duly  accredited  officer  of  any  of  these 
bodies,  for  the  successful  discharge  of  their  duties. 


392  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

When  any  matter  at  issue  is  referred  to  the 
Board  of  Conciliation,  or  to  a  Special  Committee, 
or  to  a  Commission  of  Enquiry,  such  Board,  Com- 
mittee or  Commission  shall,  if  at  any  time  during 
its  proceedings  it  succeeds  in  bringing  about  an 
agreement  between  the  parties  upon  the  matter 
at  issue,  immediately  report  such  agreement  to  the 
International  Council;  but,  if  no  such  agreement 
be  reached,  such  Board,  Committee  or  Commission 
shall,  so  soon  as  it  has  finished  its  enquiries,  and  in 
any  case  within  six  months,  make  a  report  to  the 
International  Council,  stating  the  facts  of  the  case 
and  making  any  recommendations  for  a  decision 
that  are  deemed  expedient. 

When  a  report  is  made  to  the  International 
Council  by  any  such  Board,  Committee  or  Com- 
mission that  an  agreement  has  been  arrived  at 
between  the  parties,  the  Council  shall  embody  such 
agreement,  with  a  recital  of  its  terms,  in  a  resolu- 
tion of  the  Council. 

When  any  other  report  is  made  to  the  Council 
by  any  such  Board,  Committee  or  Commission,  or 
when  the  Council  itself  has  taken  the  matter  at 
issue  into  consideration,  the  Council  shall,  after 
taking  all  the  facts  into  consideration,  and  within 
a  period  of  three  months,  come  to  a  decision  on  the 
subject,  and  shall  embody  such  decision  in  a  reso- 
lution of  the  Council.  Such  resolution  shall,  if 
necessary,  be  arrived  at  by  voting,  and  shall  be 
published,  together  with  any  report  on  the  subject, 
in  the  Official  Gazette. 

A  resolution  of  the  Council  embodying  a  de- 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  393 

cision  settling  a  matter  at  issue  between  Constit- 
uent States  shall  be  obligatory  and  binding  on  all 
the  Constituent  States,  including  all  the  parties  to 
the  matter  at  issue,  if  either  it  is  passed  unani- 
mously by  all  the  members  of  the  Council  present 
and  voting;  or  (query  add:  if  it  is  passed  with  no 
other  dissentient  present  and  voting  than  the  repre- 
sentatives of  one  only  of  the  States  which  have  been 
parties  in  the  case},  or  where  the  proposed  enact- 
ment does  not  affect  the  independent  sovereignty 
or  the  territorial  integrity,  nor  require  any  change 
in  the  internal  laws  of  any  State,  and  where 
such  enactment  shall  have  been  assented  to  by 
a  three-fourths  majority  of  the  votes  given  by 
the  representatives  present  and  voting  (query 
add:  and  such  majority  includes  all  the  eight  Great 
Powers}. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  9 

This  provides,  as  regards  non-justiciable  issues,  for  (i.)  a 
year's  delay  in  all  disputes,  and  for  their  coming  before  the 
International  Council;  (ii.)  the  utmost  possible  scope  for 
investigation,  consideration  and  mediation,  and  the  greatest 
possible  opportunity  for  ultimate  agreement  between  the 
parties;  (iii.)  where  no  voluntary  agreement  is  come  to,  the 
obligatory  settlement  of  the  dispute  by  the  International 
Council  (a)  if  the  Council  is  absolutely  unanimous;  (£)  if  it 
is  unanimous  except  for  one  of  the  parties  to  the  case;  and 
(c}  where  the  Council's  decision  affects  neither  the  independ- 
ence nor  the  territorial  integrity,  nor  requires  any  change 
in  the  internal  laws  of  any  Constituent  State,  and  if  the 
enactment  is  carried  by  a  three-fourths  majority  (or  by  such 
a  majority  including  all  the  eight  Great  Powers).  (The 
27 


394  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

tentatively  suggested  articles  i6a  and  i6b  should  be  con- 
sidered along  with  this  article.) 

Beyond  that  point,  as  regards  intractable  disputes  of  a 
non-justiciable  character,  there  seems  at  present  no  chance 
of  getting  the  States  to  agree  in  advance  to  be  bound  by 
any  Supernational  Authority. 

The  International  Secretariat 

10.  There  shall  be  an  International  Secretariat, 
with  an  office  permanently  open  for  business,  with 
such  a  staff  as  the  International  Council  may  from 
time  to  time  determine. 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  International  Secre- 
tariat to  make  all  necessary  communications  on 
behalf  of  the  International  Council  to  States  or 
individuals;  to  place  before  the  President  to  bring 
before  the  Council  any  matter  of  which  it  should 
have  cognizance;  to  organize  and  conduct  any 
enquiries  or  investigations  ordered  by  the  Council; 
to  maintain  an  accurate  record  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  Council;  to  make  authentic  translations  of 
the  resolutions  and  enactments  of  the  Council,  the 
report  of  the  proceedings,  and  other  documents, 
and  to  communicate  them  officially  to  all  the  Con- 
stituent States;  and  to  publish  for  sale  an  Official 
Gazette  and  such  other  works  as  the  Council  may 
from  time  to  time  direct. 

Subject  to  any  regulations  that  may  be  made  by 
the  International  Council,  the  International  Sec- 
retariat shall  take  charge  of  and  be  responsible  for 
(a)  the  funds  belonging  to  or  in  the  custody  of  the 
International  Council  and  the  International  High 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  395 

Court;  (b)  the  collection  of  all  receipts  due  to 
either  of  them;  and  (c)  the  making  of  all  author- 
ized payments. 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  HIGH  COURT 

II.  The  International  High  Court  shall  be  a 
permanent  judicial  tribunal,  consisting  of  fifteen 
Judges,  to  be  appointed  as  hereinafter  provided. 
Subject  to  these  Articles  it  shall,  by  a  majority  of 
Judges  sitting  and  voting,  control  its  own  proceed- 
ings, determine  its  sessions  and  place  of  meeting, 
settle  its  own  procedure,  and  appoint  its  own 
officers.  It  may,  if  thought  fit,  elect  one  of  its 
members  to  be  President  of  the  Court  for  such 
term  and  with  such  functions  as  it  may  decide. 
Its  members  shall  receive  an  annual  stipend  of 
,  whilst  if  a  President  is  elected  he 
shall  receive  an  additional  sum  of 
The  Court  shall  hear  and  decide  with  absolute 
independence  the  issues  brought  before  it  in  con- 
formity with  these  Articles ;  and  shall  in  each  case 
pronounce,  by  a  majority  of  votes,  a  single  judg- 
ment of  the  Court  as  a  whole,  which  shall  be  ex- 
pressed in  separate  reasoned  statements  by  each 
of  the  Judges  sitting  and  acting  in  the  case.  The 
sessions  of  the  Court  shall  be  held,  if  so  ordered, 
notwithstanding  the  existence  of  a  vacancy  or  of 
vacancies  among  the  Judges;  and  the  proceedings 
of  the  Court  shall  be  valid,  and  the  decision  of  a 
majority  of  the  Judges  sitting  and  acting  shall  be 
of  full  force,  notwithstanding  the  existence  of  any 


396  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

vacancy  or  vacancies  or  of  the  absence  of  any 
Judge  or  Judges. 

(Query  add:  In  any  case  at  issue  between  Con- 
stituent States  the  Judge  or  Judges  nominated  by 
one  or  more  of  such  States  shall  (unless  all  the  liti- 
gant States  otherwise  agree]  take  no  part  in  the  case.} 

The  Judges  of  the  Court 

12.  The  Judges  of  the  International  High  Court 
shall  be  appointed  for  a  term  of  five  (query:  seven) 
years  by  the  International  Council  sitting  as  a 
whole,  in  accordance  with  the  following  scheme. 
Each  of  the  Constituent  States  shall  be  formally 
invited  to  nominate  one  candidate,  who  need  not 
necessarily  be  a  citizen  or  a  resident  of  the  State 
by  which  he  is  nominated.  The  eight  candidates 
severally  nominated  by  the  eight  Great  Powers 
shall  thereupon  be  appointed.  The  remaining 
seven  Judges  shall  be  appointed  after  selection  by 
exhaustive  ballot  from  among  the  candidates 
nominated  by  the  Constituent  States  other  than 
the  eight  Great  Powers.  On  the  occurrence  of  a 
vacancy  among  the  Judges  nominated  by  the 
eight  Great  Powers,  the  State  which  had  nomi- 
nated the  Judge  whose  seat  has  become  vacant 
shall  be  invited  to  nominate  his  successor,  and 
the  candidate  so  nominated  shall  thereupon  be 
appointed.  On  the  occurrence  of  a  vacancy  among 
the  other  Judges,  each  of  the  Constituent  States 
other  than  the  eight  Great  Powers  shall  be  invited 
to  nominate  a  candidate  to  fill  the  vacancy;  and 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  397 

the  International  Council  sitting  as  a  whole  shall, 
by  exhaustive  ballot,  choose  from  among  the  can- 
didates so  nominated  the  person  to  be  appointed. 

(Query  add:  but  so  that  at  no  time  shall  more  than 
one  (or  two)  of  the  Judges  be  the  nominees  of  any  one 
State.) 

A  Judge  of  the  International  High  Court  shall 
not  be  liable  to  any  legal  proceedings  in  any  tribu- 
nal in  any  State,  and  shall  not  be  subjected  to  any 
disciplinary  action  by  any  Government,  in  respect 
of  anything  said  or  done  by  him  in  his  capacity  as 
Judge;  and  shall  not  during  his  tenure  of  office  be 
deprived  of  any  part  of  the  emoluments  or  privi- 
leges of  his  office.  A  Judge  of  the  International 
High  Court  may  be  removed  from  office  by  a  reso- 
lution  of  the  International  Council  sitting  as  a 
whole,  carried  by  a  three-fourths  majority. 

The  Court  Open  only  to  State  Governments 

13.  The  International  High  Court  shall  deal  only 
with  justiciable  questions,  as  defined  in  these  Arti- 
cles, at  issue  between  the  national  Governments  of 
independent  Sovereign  States,  and  shall  not  enter- 
tain any  application  from  or  on  behalf  of  an  indi- 
vidual person,  or  any  group  or  organization  of 
persons,  or  any  company,  or  any  subordinate  ad- 
ministration, or  any  State  not  independent  and 
Sovereign.  The  International  High  Court  may, 
if  it  thinks  fit  (query:  with  the  consent  of  all  the 
parties),  deal  with  a  suit  brought  by  a  Constituent 

28 


898 


State  against  an  independent  Sovereign  State 
which  is  not  a  Constituent  State;  or  with  a  suit 
between  two  or  more  such  States. 

Justiciable  Issues 

14.  The  justiciable  questions  with  which  the 
International  High  Court  shall  be  competent  to 
deal  shall  be  exclusively  those  falling  within  one  or 
other  of  the  following  classes,  viz. : — 

(a)  Any  question  of  fact  which,  if  established, 
would  be  a  cause  of  action  within  the  competence 
of  the  Court; 

(b)  Any  question  as  to  the  interpretation  or  ap- 
plication of  any  international  treaty  or  agreement 
duly  registered  as  provided  in  these  Articles,  or  of 
International  Law,  or  of  any  enactment  of  the 
International  Council;   together  with  any  alleged 
breach  or  contravention  thereof; 

(c)  Any   question   as   to   the   responsibility   or 
blame   attaching   to  any  independent   Sovereign 
State  for  any  of  the  acts,  negligences  or  defaults 
of  its  national  or  local  Government  officers,  agents 
or  representatives,  occasioning  loss  or  damage  to 
a  State  other  than  their  own,  whether  to  any  of 
the  citizens,  companies  or  subordinate  adminis- 
trations of  such  State,  or  to  its  national  Govern- 
ment;  and  as  to  the  reparation  to  be  made,  and 
the  compensation   to  be  paid,   for  such  loss   or 
damage ; 

(d)  Any  question  as  to  the  title,  by  agreement, 
prescription,  or  occupation,  to  the  sovereignty  of 
any  place  or  district; 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  399 

(e)  Any  question  as  to  the  demarcation  of  any 
part  of  any  national  boundary; 

(/)  Any  question  as  to  the  reparation  to  be  made, 
or  the  amount  of  compensation  to  be  paid,  in  cases 
in  which  the  principle  of  indemnity  has  been 
recognized  or  admitted  by  all  the  parties ; 

(g)  Any  question  as  to  the  recovery  of  contract 
debts  claimed  from  the  Government  of  an  inde- 
pendent Sovereign  State  by  the  Government  of 
another  independent  Sovereign  State,  as  being  due 
to  any  of  its  citizens,  companies  or  subordinate 
administrations,  or  to  itself; 

(h)  Any  question  which  may  be  submitted  to 
the  Court  by  express  agreement  between  all  the 
parties  to  the  case. 

(Query  add:  (i)  Any  question  not  falling  within 
any  of  the  classes  above  enumerated,  which  may  be 
referred  to  the  Court  by  the  International  Council  by 
a  majority  of  votes  (or  by  a  three-fourths  majority, 
or  by  a  three-fourths  majority  including  all  the  eight 
Great  Powers}.} 

The  question  of  whether  or  not  an  issue  is  jus- 
ticiable within  the  meaning  of  these  Articles  shall 
be  determined  solely  by  the  International  High 
Court,  which  may  determine  such  a  question 
whether  or  not  formal  objection  is  taken  by  any 
of  the  litigants. 

If  any  State,  being  a  party  to  any  action  in  the 
International  High  Court,  objects  that  any  point 
at  issue  is  not  a  justiciable  question  as  herein  de- 
fined, the  objection  shall  be  considered  by  the. 


400  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Court;  and  the  Court  shall,  whether  or  not  the 
objecting  State  enters  an  appearance,  or  argues 
the  matter,  pronounce  upon  the  objection,  and 
either  set  it  aside  or  declare  it  well  founded. 

It  shall  be  within  the  competence  of  the  Inter- 
national High  Court,  with  regard  to  any  justiciable 
question  in  respect  of  which  it  may  be  invoked  by 
one  or  more  of  the  parties,  summarily  to  enjoin 
any  State,  whether  or  not  a  party  to  the  case,  to 
refrain  from  taking  any  specified  positive  action 
or  to  discontinue  any  specified  positive  action 
already  begun,  or  to  cause  to  be  discontinued  any 
specified  positive  action  begun  by  any  person,  com- 
pany or  subordinate  administration  within  or  be- 
longing to  such  State,  which  in  the  judgment  of 
the  Court  is  designed  or  intended,  or  may  reason- 
ably be  expected  to  change  the  status  quo  with 
regard  to  the  question  at  issue  before  the  Court, 
or  seriously  to  injure  any  of  the  parties  to  the  case. 
Any  such  injunction  of  the  International  High 
Court  shall  be  binding,  and  shall  be  enforceable, 
in  the  same  way  as  a  judgment  of  the  Court,  in 
the  manner  hereinafter  described. 

Immediate  Publicity  for  all  Treaties,  Existing  and 

Future 

15.  No  treaty  or  agreement  between  two  or 
more  independent  Sovereign  States  shall  be  deemed 
to  confer  any  right  to  invoke  the  International 
High  Court,  or  shall  be  treated  as  valid,  or  be  in 
any  way  recognized  by  the  International  Council 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  401 

or  the  International  High  Court,  or  shall  be  held 
to  confer  any  rights,  to  impose  any  obligations,  or 
to  change  the  status  or  legal  rights  of  any  person, 
company,  subordinate  administration,  district  or 
State,  unless  a  duly  authenticated  copy  of  such 
Treaty  or  Agreement  has  been  deposited  by  one 
or  all  of  the  States  that  are  parties  to  it,  in  the 
Registry  of  the  International  High  Court,  within 
twelve  months  from  the  date  of  these  Articles,  in 
accordance  with  any  rules  that  may  from  time  to 
time  be  made  by  the  Court  for  this  purpose;  or 
in  the  case  of  a  Treaty  or  Agreement  hereafter 
made,  within  three  months  from  the  date  of  such 
Treaty  or  Agreement. 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  officer  in  charge  of 
the  Registry  immediately  after  deposit  to  allow 
the  duly  accredited  representative  of  any  Con- 
stituent State  to  inspect  and  copy  any  Treaty  or 
Agreement  so  deposited;  and  promptly  to  com- 
municate a  copy  to  the  International  Secretariat 
for  publication  in  the  Official  Gazette. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  15 

It  may  perhaps  be  left  to  the  rules  as  to  registration,  to  be 
made  by  the  International  High  Court,  to  provide  for  secur- 
ing that  the  Treaties  or  Agreements  presented  for  registra- 
tion by  one  of  the  parties  thereto  shall  be  duly  authenticated 
copies  and  translations,  and  accepted  as  correct  by  the  other 
party  or  parties,  in  such  a  way  as  to  prevent  any  question 
subsequently  arising  as  to  the  validity  of  the  bilateral  obli- 
gation purporting  to  be  created. 


402  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Undertaking  to  Submit  all  Justiciable  Questions  to 
the  International  High  Court 

1 6.  The  Constituent  States  severally  undertake 
and  agree  to  submit  to  the  International  High 
Court  for  trial  and  judgment  every  question,  dif- 
ference or  dispute  coming  within  the  definition  of 
a  justiciable  question  as  laid  down  by  these  Arti- 
cles that  may  arise  between  themselves  and  any 
other  independent  Sovereign  State  or  States;  and 
at  all  times  to  abstain,  in  respect  of  such  questions, 
from  anything  in  the  nature  of  an  ultimatum; 
from  any  threat  to  take  unfriendly  or  aggressive 
action  of  any  kind  with  a  view  to  redressing  the 
alleged  grievance  or  punishing  the  alleged  wrong- 
doing; and  from  any  general  mobilization,  or  any 
violation  of  the  territory  of  any  other  State  or 
attack  on  the  ships  of  such  State  or  other  military 
or  naval  operations,  or  other  action  leading  or 
likely  to  lead  to  war. 

(Query:  insert  these  two  additional  Articles.) 
Provision  for  Abrogation  of  Obsolete  Treaties 

i6A.  Provided  that  any  Constituent  State  may  at 
any  time,  whether  before  or  after  any  question,  dis- 
pute or  difference  has  arisen  on  the  subject  with  one 
or  more  other  States,  claim  to  have  it  declared  that 
any  Treaty  or  Agreement  to  which  it  is  a  party  has 
become  obsolete,  wholly  or  in  part,  by  reason  of  the 
subsequent  execution  of  another  Treaty  or  Agreement 
by  which  the  earlier  Treaty  or  Agreement  has  been 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  403 

substantially  abrogated,  or  by  reason  of  one  or  other 
independent  Sovereign  State  concerned  in  such  Treaty 
or  Agreement  having  ceased  to  exist  as  such,  or  by 
reason  of  such  a  change  of  circumstances  that  the 
very  object  and  purpose  for  which  all  the  parties  made 
the  Treaty  or  Agreement  can  no  longer  be  attained. 
When  such  a  claim  is  made  by  either  of  the  parties 
to  a  question,  dispute  or  difference,  either  party  may, 
instead  of  submitting  the  question,  dispute  or  differ- 
ence as  a  justiciable  issue  to  the  International  High 
Court,  in  the  alternative  bring  before  the  International 
Council  sitting  as  a  whole  its  claim  to  have  the  Treaty 
or  Agreement  declared  to  be  obsolete,  wholly  or  in 
part;  and  shall  at  the  same  time  submit  the  question, 
dispute  or  difference  as  a  non-justiciable  issue  to  the 
International  Council  sitting  as  a  whole. 

The  Council  shall  promptly  take  into  consideration 
any  claim  by  a  Constituent  State  to  have  any  Treaty 
or  Agreement  declared  obsolete,  whether  or  not  any 
question,  dispute  or  difference  has  arisen  in  connec- 
tion with  the  subject,  and  shall  take  such  steps  as  it 
may  deem  fit  to  ascertain  the  facts  of  the  case,  and 
may  on  any  of  the  grounds  aforesaid  decide  by  resolu- 
tion (query:  passed  by  a  three-fourths  majority,  or  a 
three-fourths  majority  including  all  the  eight  Great 
Powers),  that  the  said  Treaty  or  Agreement  is  wholly 
or  in  part  obsolete  and  ought  to  be  abrogated,  and  in 
that  case  the  said  Treaty  or  Agreement  shall  be  deemed 
to  have  been  abrogated  to  such  extent  and  from  such 
date,  and  subject  to  such  conditions  as  may  be  specified 
in  the  resolution  of  the  Council. 

If  the  Council  passes  such  a  resolution  as  afore- 


404  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

said,  and  if  any  question,  dispute  or  difference  has 
been  submitted  to  the  Council  in  connection  with  the 
subject,  the  Council  shall  thereupon  promptly  deal 
with  the  question,  dispute  or  difference  as  a  non- 
justiciable  issue  in  conformity  with  these  Articles. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  i6A 

It  seems  as  if  some  such  proviso  as  is  here  tentatively  sug- 
gested were  required,  if  all  existing  Treaties  and  Agreements 
are  to  be  registered  and  made  the  basis  for  potential  legal 
proceedings  before  the  International  High  Court.  It  has  not 
always  been  customary  in  Treaties  specifically  to  repeal  or 
abrogate  the  provisions  of  former  treaties;  and  there  is 
hardly  ever  any  limit  set  to  their  endurance.  There  is  no 
saying  what  weird  cases  might  not  be  founded  on  the  various 
clauses  of  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia  (1648)  or  on  those  of 
the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  (1713),  or  on  one  or  other  of  the  tens 
of  thousands  of  uncancelled  documents,  all  solemnly  signed 
and  sealed,  and  professedly  part  of  the  "public  law"  of 
Europe,  that  might  be  fished  up  out  of  the  Chancelleries  of 
Europe  for  registration  and  potential  enforcement  in  the 
International  High  Court.  To  enable  disputes  as  to  Treaties 
to  be  decided  by  a  judicial  tribunal  is  the  very  first  object  of 
all  proposals  of  this  nature.  Yet  a  vast  number  of  the  exist- 
ing Treaties  are,  in  fact,  wholly  obsolete.  Provision  ought 
to  be  made  somehow  for  deciding,  otherwise  than  by  their 
repudiation  by  one  party,  which  of  them  must  be  declared 
to  have  become  null  and  void;  and  it  is  suggested  that  this 
is  a  matter  for  decision,  case  by  case,  by  the  International 
Council  representing  the  States  of  the  world.  An  alternative 
course — which  might,  however,  so  choke  the  machinery  as  to 
prevent  the  Supernational  Authority  even  getting  under  way 
— would  be  to  provide  for  some  impartial  scrutiny  and  con- 
sideration of  all  Treaties  and  Agreements  when  they  are 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  405 

presented  for  registration,  in  order  to  admit  to  registration 
only  those  deemed  to  be  still  in  full  force. 

Provision  for  Cases  in  which  International  Law  is 
Vague,   Uncertain,  or  Incomplete 

i6B.  Provided  also  that  when  any  question,  dispute 
or  difference  has  arisen  between  two  or  more  Con- 
stituent States,  and  such  question,  dispute  or  differ- 
ence may  be  deemed  to  be  a  justiciable  issue  as  defined 
in  these  Articles,  any  of  the  parties  to  such  issue  may, 
before  it  has  been  submitted  to  the  International  High 
Court,  take  exception  to  its  being  so  submitted,  on  the 
ground  that  the  International  Law  applicable  to  such 
issue  is  so  vague,  or  so  uncertain,  or  so  incomplete  as 
to  render  the  strict  application  thereof  to  the  issue  in 
question  impracticable  or  inequitable.  The  Constit- 
uent State  taking  such  exception  shall  thereupon  im- 
mediately submit  the  question,  dispute  or  difference 
to  the  International  Council  instead  of  to  the  Inter- 
national High  Court,  and  shall  request  the  Council 
in  the  first  place  to  consider  and  decide  whether  the 
exception  is  justly  taken. 

If  the  Council  decides  by  resolution  passed  by  a 
three-fourths  majority  (Query  add:  including  all  the 
eight  Great  Powers]  that  the  exception  is  justly  taken, 
no  proceedings  shall  be  taken  on  the  issue  in  the 
International  High  Court.  The  Council  shall  there- 
upon promptly  decide  by  resolution  either  to  formulate 
new  and  additional  principles  of  International  Law 
applicable  to  the  issue,  which  (Query  add:  if  enacted 
by  a  three-fourths  majority,  or  by  a  three-fourths 
majority  including  all  the  eight  Great  Powers)  shall 


406  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

be  referred  to  the  International  High  Court  with  in- 
structions to  decide  the  question,  dispute  or  difference 
in  accordance  therewith;  or  the  Council  shall,  in  the 
alternative,  promptly  deal  with  the  question,  dispute 
or  difference  as  a  non-justiciable  issue  in  conformity 
with  these  Articles. 

NOTE  TO  ARTICLE  i6e 

It  seems  necessary  to  provide  also  for  cases  which,  although 
apparently  justiciable  issues  because  there  exists  a  certain 
amount  of  International  Law  dealing  with  the  subject,  could 
not  equitably  or  properly  be  decided  by  the  International 
High  Court  upon  such  law,  owing  to  the  vagueness,  the  un- 
certainty, or  the  incompleteness  thereof.  It  is,  therefore, 
tentatively  suggested  that  it  might  be  allowed  to  a  Constitu- 
ent State  to  take  exception  to  a  reference  to  the  Court,  and 
to  submit  the  issue  to  the  International  Council  on  this 
ground,  asking  at  the  same  time  for  a  decision  of  the  Council 
upon  the  exception.  The  Council  could  then,  by  an  over- 
whelming majority,  decide  whether  the  exception  is  well 
taken.  In  that  case  the  Council  would  then  have  to  decide 
either  to  lay  down  new  or  additional  principles  of  Interna- 
tional Law  applicable  to  the  question,  and  remit  the  question 
with  such  new  or  additional  principles  to  the  High  Court  for 
trial  as  a  justiciable  issue.  In  the  alternative,  if  it  does  not 
by  such  an  overwhelming  majority  decide  to  enact  new  Inter- 
national Law,  the  Council  shall  deal  with  the  question  as  a  f 
non-justiciable  issue. 


17.  When  in  any  case  upon  which  judgment  is 
given  by  the  International  High  Court,  the  Court 
finds  that  any  of  the  parties  to  the  case  has,  by  act, 
negligence,  or  default,  committed  any  breach  of 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  407 

international  obligation,  whether  arising  by  Treaty 
or  Agreement,  or  by  International  Law,  or  by 
enactment  of  the  International  Council  in  accord- 
ance with  these  Articles,  the  Court  may  simply 
declare  that  one  or  other  litigant  State  is  in  de- 
fault, and  leave  such  State  voluntarily  to  make 
reparation;  or  the  Court  may,  in  the  alternative, 
itself  direct  reparation  to  be  made  or  compensation 
to  be  paid  for  such  wrong,  and  may  assess  damages 
or  compensation,  and  may,  either  by  way  of  addi- 
tion to  damages  or  compensation,  or  as  an  alter- 
native, impose  a  pecuniary  fine  upon  the  State 
declared  in  default,  hereinafter  called  the  recal- 
citrant State;  and  may  require  compliance  with 
its  decree  within  a  specified  time  under  penalty  of 
a  pecuniary  fine,  and  may  prescribe  the  application 
of  any  such  damages,  compensation,  or  fine. 

In  the  event  of  non-compliance  with  any  decision 
or  decree  or  injunction  of  the  International  High 
Court,  or  of  non-payment  of  the  damages,  com- 
pensation, or  fine  within  the  time  specified  for  such 
payment,  the  Court  may  decree  execution,  and 
may  call  upon  the  Constituent  States,  or  upon  some 
or  any  of  them,  to  put  in  operation,  after  duly 
published  notice,  for  such  period  and  under  such 
conditions  as  may  be  arranged,  any  or  all  of  the 
following  sanctions — viz.: 

(a)  To  lay  an  embargo  on  any  or  all  ships  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  such  Constituent  State  or  States 
registered  as  belonging  to  the  recalcitrant  State; 

(b)  To  prohibit  any  lending  of  capital  or  other 
moneys  to  the  citizens,  companies,  or  subordinate 


408  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

administrations  of  the  recalcitrant  State,  or  to  its 
national  Government; 

(c)  To  prohibit  the  issue  or  dealing  in  or  quota- 
tion on  the  Stock  Exchange  or  in  the  press  of  any 
new  loans,  debentures,  shares,  notes  or  securities 
of  any  kind  by  any  of  the  citizens,  companies  or 
subordinate    administrations    of   the    recalcitrant 
State,  or  of  its  national  Government; 

(d)  To   prohibit    all    postal,    telegraphic,    tele- 
phonic and  wireless  communication  with  the  re- 
calcitrant State; 

(e)  To  prohibit  the  payment  of  any  debts  due 
to  the  citizens,  companies  or  subordinate  adminis- 
trations of  the  recalcitrant  State,  or  to  its  national 
Government;    and,  if  thought  fit,  to  direct  that 
payment  of  such  debts  shall  be  made  only  to  one 
or  other  of  the  Constituent  Governments,  which 
shall  give  a  good  and  legally  valid  discharge  for 
the  same,  and  shall  account  for  the  net  proceeds 
thereof  to  the  International  High  Court; 

(/)  To  prohibit  all  imports,  or  certain  specified 
imports,  coming  from  the  recalcitrant  State,  or 
originating  within  it; 

(g)  To  prohibit  all  exports,  or  certain  specified 
exports  consigned  directly  to  the  recalcitrant  State, 
or  destined  for  it; 

(h)  To  prohibit  all  passenger  traffic  (other  than 
the  exit  of  foreigners),  whether  by  ship,  railway, 
canal  or  road,  to  or  from  the  recalcitrant  State; 

(i)  To  prohibit  the  entrance  into  any  port  of  the 
Constituent  States  of  any  of  the  ships  registered 
as  belonging  to  the  recalcitrant  State,  except  so 


PREVENTION  OF  WAR  409 

far  as  may  be  necessary  for  any  of  them  to  seek 
safety,  in  which  case  such  ship  or  ships  shall  be 
interned; 

(/)  To  declare  and  enforce  a  decree  of  complete 
non-intercourse  with  the  recalcitrant  State,  includ- 
ing all  the  above-mentioned  measures  of  partial 
non-intercourse ; 

(k)  To  levy  a  special  export  duty  on  all  goods 
destined  for  the  recalcitrant  State,  accounting  for 
the  net  proceeds  to  the  International  High  Court; 

(/)  To  furnish  a  contingent  of  war-ships  to 
maintain  a  combined  blockade  of  one  or  more  of 
the  ports,  or  of  the  whole  coastline  of  the  recal- 
citrant State. 

The  International  High  Court  shall  arrange  for 
all  the  expenses  incurred  in  putting  in  force  the 
above  sanctions,  including  any  compensation  for 
loss  thereby  incurred  by  any  citizens,  companies, 
subordinate  administrations  or  national  Govern- 
ments of  any  of  the  Constituent  Sta'tes  other  than 
the  recalcitrant  State,  to  be  raised  by  a  levy  on  all 
the  Constituent  States  in  such  proportions  as  may 
be  decided  by  the  International  Council;  and  for 
the  eventual  recovery  of  the  total  sum  by  way  of 
additional  penalty  from  the  recalcitrant  State.. 

When  on  any  decree  or  decision  or  injunction  of 
the  International  High  Court  execution  is  ordered, 
or  when  any  sanction  or  other  measure  ordered  by 
the  Court  is  directed  to  be  put  in  operation  against 
any  Constituent  State,  it  shall  be  an  offense  against 
the  comity  of  nations  for  the  State  against  which 
such  decree,  decision,  injunction  or  execution  has 


410          INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

been  pronounced  or  ordered,  or  against  which  any 
sanction  or  other  measure  is  directed  to  be  en- 
forced, to  declare  war,  or  to  take  any  naval  or 
military  action,  or  to  violate  the  territory  or  attack 
the  ships  of  any  other  State  or  to  commit  any  other 
act  of  aggression  against  any  or  all  of  the  States  so 
acting  under  the  order  of  the  Court;  and  all  the 
other  Constituent  States  shall  be  bound,  and  do 
hereby  pledge  themselves,  to  make  common  cause 
with  the  State  or  States  so  attacked,  and  to  use 
naval  and  military  force  to  protect  such  State  or 
States,  and  to  enforce  the  orders  of  the  Interna- 
tional High  Court,  by  any  warlike  operations  that 
may  for  the  purpose  be  deemed  necessary. 


Ill 

APPENDIX A    SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  projects  for  preventing  war  by  some  form  of  Inter- 
national social  tissue — from  Le  Nouveau  Cynee  of  Emeric 
Cruce^,  in  1623,  down  to  the  latest  "pacifist"  pamphlet — are 
literally  innumerable.  A  convenient  work  is  International 
Tribunals:  a  Collection  of  various  schemes  which  have  been 
propounded,  and  of  instances  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  by 
W.  Evans  Derby,  927  pp.  (4th  edition,  Dent,  1904).  The 
Peace  Year  Book  (286  pp.,  annual,  the  National  Peace  Coun- 
cil, 167  St.  Stephen's  House,  Westminster,  price  is.)  affords 
much  information  and  gives  a  list  of  treaties. 

For  the  Hague  Conference  of  1907  the  most  convenient 
source  is  not  the  three  enormous  volumes  of  proceedings 
officially  published  by  the  Dutch  Government,  but  the  Brit- 
ish Blue  Book,  Cd.  4175,  of  July,  1908,  which  gives  the  Final 
Act  and  all  the  Conventions;  or  else  the  volume  called  Inter- 
national Documents:  Conventions  and  Declarations  of  a  Law- 
making  Kind,  by  E.  A.  Whittuck  (2  parts,  1908-9,  Long- 
mans), which  gives  also  the  conclusions  of  the  Hague 
Conference  of  1899.  Descriptive  accounts,  embodying  the 
results,  are  The  Two  Hague  Conferences,  by  William  I.  Hull, 
516  pp.  (Quin,  Boston,  1908);  The  Hague  Peace  Conferences 
and  other  International  Conferences  concerning  the  Laws  and 
Usages  of  War,  by  A.  Pearce  Higgins,  632  pp.  (Cambridge 
University  Press,  1909);  The  Hague  Peace  Conferences  of 
1899  and  1907,  by  J.  B.  Scott,  2  vols.  (1909,  Baltimore). 

For  arrangements  for  the  control  of  foreign  policy  by  the 
Legislature,  reference  may  be  made  to  the  British  Blue  Book, 
Cd.  6102,  of  1912,  on  "The  Treatment  of  International 

411 


412  INTERNATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

Questions  by  Parliaments  in  European  Countries,  the  U.S.A. 
and  Japan." 

Other  works  that  may  be  mentioned  are  The  Arbiter  in 
Council,  by  F.  W.  Hirst,  567  pp.  (1906,  Macmillan);  Pax 
Britannica,  by  H.  S.  Ferris  (1913,  Sidgwick  &  Jackson,  53.); 
The  Modern  Law  of  Nations  and  the  Prevention  of  War,  by 
Sir  Frederick  Pollock  (a  short  chapter  in  Vol.  12  of  The 
Cambridge  Modern  History) ;  Problems  of  International  Prac- 
tice and  Diplomacy,  by  Sir  Thomas  Barclay  (1907,  Sweet  & 
Maxwell);  Armaments  and  Arbitration,  by  A.  T.  Mahan 
(1912);  A  Handbook  of  Public  International  Law,  by  T.  J. 
Lawrence  (1913,  8th  edition,  Macmillan). 


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